rwgriffith

You're forgetting something very important. We do allow one person to define music. That one person is each and every individual on this planet. And in fact that exact scenario has already happened. Not only do people buy it, but it is considered a large part of recent musical developments. It's called Indeterminism. What's the difference between banging a pencil on a cardboard box, and playing a drum? The fact that a 'musical instrument' company made you pay $300 for the drum and I got the box out of a dumpster. They both make sounds... And a flashlight on a desk would be music in that scenario. Just as blending carrots and tomatoes and drinking the juice as in Cage's 0'0" (Any 'life' action would do.) And you're right, a nuclear bomb going off and the sounds produced by jerking off have both been featured in pieces of music. Music is not everything. Everything is Music. If you listen to it as such. If you don't, but say you do, you're only lying to yourself. The rest of us don't listen and define music the same way you do anyway. The point? Listening is the point. #1 As I said before, no one knows how Music began. In fact, it has been hypothesized that Early Man created music by imitating animal calls. In that regard, how is birdsong not music? It very well could be where music came from! And what is to be done about Messiaen, and his 'musical interpretations' of birdsong??? #2 The majority of animals do have emotions, and emotional response patterns. They do not have the range of human emotions, but chimps come really damned close. #3 There is plenty of music that has nothing to do with emotions. There is plenty of Music that is deliberately nothing but a 'bunch of sounds'.

In a good way! You validate your viewpoint by having it. It is, after all, a perspective. No one perspective is 'better' than another. More advantageous in certain situations perhaps, but not 'better'. In fact, unless you've seen something from every possible perspective, you aren't getting the whole picture. Something very few of us are able to do.

In the context of the question: "What is Music/What does Music mean to you?" There is only one kind of Music: The kind you listen to. Actually that is very close to the end point of my argument. Music is what ever 'you' listen to as music. Regardless of whether you are discussing the average person, or you in particular. Music is what everyone calls music, regardless of their agreement. In fact, it's that very disagreement that allows the definition of 'what music is', to develop and grow, leading to new music, the defeat of creative stagnation, and breakthroughs into new musical territory. According to what we just said, regardless of composers over intellectualizing, or not even thinking about it, they are right. Always. History doesn't say why people began making music, and I'd be willing to bet most people alive today wouldn't call Og's 'Concerto for Hollow Log', music... but it would be. Obviously Og thought it was music. People should be willing to call anything music. As long as they are willing to listen to it as such. Yes, to that one person, and that's all we need. If everyone says 'it's not music', it isn't music. Why? Because no one is listening to it as music. As long as someone somewhere listens to something as music, and therefore defines it as such, it is music. If you don't agree with that someone, and do not define it as music, that does not invalidate it as such. It just means you aren't listening to it as music. If no one is listening to it as music, then no one is defining it as music, and it isn't music.

Good job... now half the population is going to be speaking in numbers, and the other half like cavemen.... Ug, me no like numbertalk.... ROFLMAO!!! Like you said, there's nothing new under the sun..... LOL!!! I know this question wasn't asked of me, but I have the answer. I've been listening. The fact that people are listening is what put Boulez in the history books. Oh no. It's just secondary thematic development.... Haha. In answer: I think he can defend himself. Bam! And possibly because you want to enjoy hearing your music too?? After all, aren't you a part of your own audience, and a part that has a major effect on the music that gets written? Personally I write stuff that I like, and if other people like it too, great. If not, oh well, at least I've satisfied myself.

And the better your ear will be when listening to the music you're writing, performing etc. What if it makes me want to rationalize it, without emotional involvement? What if it moves my friend, but makes me want to burn out my ear drums? What if 99% of the world calls it noise, and the other 1% become a 'cult' based around concepts found in the piece? All of these things have happened, in a manner of speaking. And they've happened to works you would call music. Example: Get a recording of Schoenberg's 5 pieces for orchestra. Collect three groups of people: A group of 'street thugs', a group of 50 year old grandmothers, and a group of Music Majors. Play the music for them. Record their responses. You'll generally find the only a small part of the Students call it music. The rest of that group, and the entire other two groups will call it crap. Yet Schoenberg is considered a Musical Genius, and called so rightly. He was a genius. Then why do we get these results? Is it because a group of gang bangers and old ladies don't have the unintellectual capacity and musical knowledge to appreciate Schoenberg? You could argue yes until you're blue in the face, and to be honest I'd want to be on your side, but we'd both be wrong. The fact is that most people have been culturally trained to think of "in" music as the only "Music". We're all enrolled in a class. It's called Life. The experiences we have teach us how to think, act, and what to believe. That applies to our musical lives as well. Whatever we learn to call Music, be it from others, or from personal experience: Is Music.[/i]

I agree. I'd also say that you don't know a sound until you've heard it enough to commit it to long term memory. We all 'know' what a violin sounds like, but how many of us really know the sound of a violin?

Bam!

Who says the robot isn't playing music? I assume we disagree. The robot isn't playing music very well, but it is playing music. The point at which sound becomes music is when you listen to it as such. It has nothing to do with the sounds. It has to do with your perception of those sounds. Or co-dependent, how ever you want to hear it. That is the point, after all. Music isn't about "what music is all about". It's about Listening.

I understand what you're saying, and in a way, I agree. But, what really is the 'so much more' you're talking about? All of the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual 'information' you find in a piece of music is from you, not the music. Sound does not carry information in and of itself. It's the learned responses to certain sounds that we have that carry that information, within the context of the music. Example: Which is sadder, the key of A or Dm? Why?

How come? I should have left the word 'just' out.

Sorry I chopped your post all up. but I got here late, and that thing was huge! :) I agree with all of this. (At least the parts I left...) Music is just sound. That's the only criteria we can all agree on, and that's how we define things as a species. Individually it may be different. I think music is sound intended for listening. All of the other ideas feelings, science etc. that we add to that is based on our own value judgments and preferences. Not that there's anything wrong with that. We should attach those things to music (or not, as we see fit), because it's what helps us write and enjoy listening to music. Music can communicate the most deeply felt beliefs and emotions, or just exist as the specific noises contained therein. It can be a glorious and perfected example of scientific study and practice, or a fist slamming on random piano keys. It can be all of those things, none of those things or anything in between. An age old question, as a metaphor: Q: Is the glass half full, or half empty? A: Glasses of water are for DRINKING!!!! There is music that has no regard for pitch. Only a 'sense' of high and low. The entire concept of pitch, or tonality is completely irrelevant, unless you decide to take it into consideration for yourself.

Learn to sing. When you can sing what's in your head, then you can actually hear it. Then buy an electronic tuner.;)

I hold to that idea as well. There is nothing 'better' about any certain aspect of music, when compared to a like aspect. Gm is not 'better' then A. 16th notes are not 'better' than 8th note triplets. Except as per our personal preferences and value judgments. Those aspects have no 'value' in and of themselves. I think that's why so many composers used aleatoric methods. To break away from their 'interference' with those aspects. (What did I really just say?) Personally, I happen to like the preferences and value judgments I've made about music. That's, uh, why I made them.... Can I for a moment though? If only to say: What is wrong with that, if that is what you want to do? Actually, I don't really like Glass or Boulez, so, well, I guess I'll agree with both of you......ROFLMAO Seriously though. I agree!!! Yes, but is it good? I think you'll find that writing good music is harder than you think.

Sorry.

Can I play too?