the topic of topics: MIDI vs AUDIO ("what is music"?)

[trevox]

John Chowning's Stria.

this piece of "music" is tonal. It is just played on a pseudo-octave with ratio 1,618:1 rather than 2:1 ("rapporto aureo"). So the result is non harmonical rather than harmonical. But the ratio is still tonal. You can call it "microtonal" if you want. Playable, replayable, editable, writable with MIDI parameters: avant-garde music. Too complex as a concept. I doubt people here can understand such complex approach about music and its theory/theoretics. I think they play "traditional" music (based on scale, chords and rhythm: 99,9% of both complex and simple music out there). The Daws are made for this kind of music (played by humans, not by a computer for an experiment about FM). In this perspective (99,9% of music made using daws, sequencer, electronic instruments, workstations, computers) only MIDI tracks are music.

One of my friends writes electronic music without using MIDI - he uses Sound Forge rather than a DAW. It is all audio that he created himself using various instruments/sounds and it is completely original and "musical". I also often play some of my analog synths live also and just record the audio meaning no MIDI. This renders your original post "MIDI vs AUDIO" invalid as part of that question is missing though the same result is achieved. So there is a dichotomy for you - electronic music with no MIDI. So by your theory, this is not music? And if it is music, your head should surely be about to explode?

I think I know what you are getting at, but you are making a complete arse of trying to explain yourself. We listen to music with our ears. In order for our ears to hear it, we need a means for it to be played. This is where audio files come in (if not listened to live). The music is stored in these audio files, whether it be on vinyl, CD or MP3 - whatever, it doesn't matter. I think what most are trying to say here is that the means to ending up with that audio really does not matter. The tangible music ends up being stored on some form of media which can be listened to and there are several means to getting that same recording. This is what we listen to. If you only looked at the MIDI, you wouldn't get the entire picture as it does not contain ALL of the music - the audio does. If you were to simply ask "What is music" and leave MIDI out of it, it would make a lot more sense and would probably receive far less negative response.

Unless you are completely up your own arse and think you are above the posters on this forum, you have to accept this. And if you don't accept this, you should really stop listening to music and read more books about it instead. Music is there to be listened to and enjoyed - it is there to evoke an emotional response to someone else expressing themselves, and in 10 pages of forum posts, you have done nothing but patronize every single response you have received with "intellect" that is far removed from the joy the users of this forum get out of writing, performing and more importantly, listening to music. If you see music in the cold, academic way you appear to do, you really have the wrong forum.

As a matter of interest, do you actually write electronic music?

[crumhorn]

According to dictionary.com there are 8 senses of the word MUSIC

1. an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.

2. the tones or sounds employed, occurring in single line (melody) or multiple lines (harmony), and sounded or to be sounded by one or more voices or instruments, or both.

3. musical work or compositions for singing or playing.

4. the written or printed score of a musical composition.

5. such scores collectively.

6. any sweet, pleasing, or harmonious sounds or sound: the music of the waves.

7. appreciation of or responsiveness to musical sounds or harmonies: Music was in his very soul.

8. Fox Hunting . the cry of the hounds.

These definitions have been painstakingly derived from the ways in which people actually use the word.

@9V - You seem to be pedantically insisting that number 4 and 5 (and possibly 3) are the only true definitions.

If you just are saying that the code that describes a musical performance, the performance itself (whether by human or machine), the sound of that performance and the experience of that sound are four fundamentally different things then I can't help but agree with you. The whole process by which musical ideas are created, realized and experienced is a fascinating subject - but to get bogged down in a debate about the definition and application of the word music is not getting us anywhere

[crofter]

The best thing about this thread was the speculation about the piano player's thrupnies, these were hardly touched on, that was page one, it's gone downhill since then.

[docprosper]

I'll touch on 'em...

[ian_halsall]

rubbish

[9V]

One of my friends writes electronic music without using MIDI - he uses Sound Forge rather than a DAW.

Chopin wrote music without using MIDI... 90% of musicians don't use MIDI. They use instruments and/or a pen. But: if what you wrote/composed can be translated into score or MIDI instructions, then it is music. Otherwise it is just sound. It can even be "musical" sound (like the singing of the birds, a storm, the tolls of a bell etc.) but being a musical sound does not mean it is "music". MUSIC must be written, read, edited, changeable, playable, replayable. Is the music of your friend respecting these rules? Then it is music. Otherwise NO, it isn't. Human music has rules. Complex rules are difficult to play (but not impossible: see the virtuosos playing chopin or stockhausen etc.). Simple rules can be played even by a child. This is music.

We listen to music with our ears.

Wrong. We listen to sounds with our ears. Our brain can recognize whether it is music or not, because music has rules. When these rules are too complex, only expert musicians can understand it is music. Naive listeners will say: "it is my cat jumping on the piano" or "it is something nice. Beautiful sounds! Is it music?". It is like a language: if i speak english words your ears hear sounds and your brain calls these words "english" (because of the rules of grammar). If i write: "dfjkaslòifjoif4i 4iofklafòldkj", your brain understands it is not a language, even if the elements are the same (letters). Why? Because there is no rule. Maybe you could interpret this "chaos" like "what a strange tongue" or "is it a secret CODE?" etc. Why i can translate my italian thoughts into english? Because of the universal rules of grammar. This is the difference between AUDIO and MUSIC: music is the code. Audio is just sound. So, when you listen to an audio track, your brain understands IT WAS MUSIC. It is human deceiving, normal. Like if i watch someone reflected in a mirror. But that reflex is not him. It is identical, of course. But techincally it is something different.

MIDI is revolutionary, because it is the only STANDARD, UNIVERSAL MUSICAL way to make different electronic instruments to communicate each other. Something new in music history. It is like a score sheet in the past: I can give it to an indian, an arab, a chinese... everyone... and they can read, play, edit it: it remains music. Because music is a universal language, it is not like human tongue or other forms of expression. That is why it is the most universal form of art. If you break this "code", you break music. AUDIO is not music. It is sound. MIDI is music. If you play with audio you can call yourself "a sound performer", not a musician. The music (to remain music) must be universal: that is to say "universal code". Which are the musical "universal codes" of audio?! They don't exist. Audio is editable with acoustic parameters, not with musical parameters.

[crofter]

You really should get out more.

[9V]

You really should get out more.

[3rdFloorSound]

My God, this topic jumped into a new forum? Didn't expect to see that while I was searching around for answers to my (likely ridiculous) questions.
Nova, I think we're still looking at what largely amounts to a problem in translation.
Somewhere early on in this thread I think I spotted that you said something to the effect that the word "music" in Italian refers only to written music. By the look of things we've got largely English speakers in here. They would say that is specifically called "sheet music" (spartita?) or a "musical score" where instead, the term music has a much broader set of definitions like Crumhorn mentioned.
It's a syllogism, really, or maybe a few syllogisms that are crossing paths and making things hard to dissect into separate understandable discussions.

[9V]

we've got largely English speakers in here. They would say that is specifically called "sheet music" or a "musical score" where instead, the term music has a much broader set of definitions like Crumhorn mentioned.
It's a syllogism, really, or maybe a few syllogisms that are crossing paths and making things hard to dissect into separate understandable discussions.

It is just because italians invented modern music in 1500. You cannot understand the difference, maybe too difficult for most of you, i don't know... You call "syllogism" something so simple here in italy. You tend to call "music" everything you hear with your ears... and "food" everything you eat

[rote fahne]

1.MUSIC must be written, read, edited, changeable, playable, replayable.

2. This is the difference between AUDIO and MUSIC: music is the code. Audio is just sound.

I took out 2 remarks of you to comment on.

ad 1. That music must be read, edited, changeable, playable, replayable is completely arbitrary.

It only has to be written.

ad 2. If music is music according the rules, then BOTH the corresponding midi file AND the audio file are music.

Its irrelevant if the audiofile can be turned into midi, if it can be edited, or whatever. That is completely irrelevant. It is a invalid criterium.

I dont care if you agree or not, I just say what it is.

[9V]

That music must be read, edited, changeable, playable, replayable is completely arbitrary. It only has to be written.

Wrong. I can write epoeidsafdsòljkeid . This is nothing. Just random chaos. If you can give a "sense" to that it becomes language. How? editing that, changing some letters, etc. Then it is something SIGNIFICANT. Otherwise it is a nonsense. The same for music. Otherwise everything heard would be sound. I take my cat, i put her (it is a she, hehe), i record the "performance" and i call it "my cat music". No, it does not work like that in MUSIC. Music is order, not chaos.

If music is music according the rules, then BOTH the corresponding midi file AND the audio file are music.

Wrong: the first (MIDI) is the code. The second (AUDIO) is the consequence, not the language. The first is still music, the secondo is sound (a consequence of music)

[rote fahne]

That music must be read, edited, changeable, playable, replayable is completely arbitrary. It only has to be written.

Wrong. I can write epoeidsafdsòljkeid . This is nothing. Just random chaos. If you can give a "sense" to that it becomes language. The same for music. Otherwise everything heard would be sound. I take my cat, i put her (it is a she, hehe), i record the "performance" and i call it "my cat music". No, it does not work like that in MUSIC. Music is order, not chaos.

If music is music according the rules, then BOTH the corresponding midi file AND the audio file are music.

Wrong: the first (MIDI) is the code. The second (AUDIO) is the consequence, not the language. The first is still music, the secondo is sound (a consequence of music)

Again, you didnt understand. Okay I didnt explicitly say under remark that I was making the remark under the condition that we were talking about music, not about chaos.

So my whole post must be understood under the premisses that we deal with music, music according the rules.

Then your second remark still doesnt make sense, cause when we deal with music, the midi file is the music WITHOUT the sound, and the corresponding audio file is the music WITH the sound.

There you go.

[9V]

Here an example of human brain tendence to "give sense" to everything (like you, rote fahn, when you talk about SOUND as "music" (?))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skE2dq3cm0A

[rote fahne]

Here an example of human brain tendence to "give sense" to everything (like you, rote fahn, when you talk about SOUND as "music" (?))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skE2dq3cm0A

No no, your not going to escape with trying to divert to other manifestations, we keep to the strict sense of music, the purest and most strict definition we can give for music.

Starting from this definition we are going to talk about the situation in which we deal with real music, not something else. And this real music is the code.

Now this code can manifest itself in several ways, amongst MIDI and AUDIO.

Then I say: MIDI is the music WITHOUT the sound, and AUDIO is the music WITH the sound.

Dont corrupt the purity of the definition.

((I know you Italians like to do that, but I wont allow you.

You are in a strict Calvinistic domain here.) between () scherzando)