On Music

[myrnova]

I guess I just am not getting your point. I feel as if you're saying the music is in the method and not the result?

Yes, music is an objective method and does not necessarily need sound (the result). The result (sound of music) is important for the listener, not for the composer. Music is the objective code, not the subjective feeling. As a code, it is made of relations (between notes). Sounds are important, but not always essential (infact music works even within our mind: you don't think "sounds", you think intervals between notes. That is music).

In other words: one can even believe his bird in the cage is playing "melodies" or the cat jumping on piano is playing "music". Of course a (real) composer knows music is a language, it has nothing to do with the random sounds made by birds, thunders, engines etc. This fantasy (imagining melodies while listening to birds, machines, wind, water, electronic sound effects, etc.) is subjective, not objective.

The sound of music is the consequence of music, not music in itself (which is a mental-human-universal OBJECTIVE "pre-sound" code, pre-linsuistic, too). The rest is in your fantasy, imagination, emotion, suggestion, feelings, memories, whatever you as a listener link to a particular sound (sound of music included). You are allowed to percieve a butterfly or a face in a cloud if you like, but if you call that cloud "a picture" you are wrong. That is your subjective perception, a consequence of your imagination, not reality.

What Stringtapper calls "modern music" in my opinion is not music, but "art of manipulating sound". It is subjective, not objective. It is like watching the clouds and realizing they resemble a face, an animal, etc. Now, you can call the sky "a painter" and clouds "pictures" if you like... That is very poetic, but does not explain neither clouds nor wind.

Calling "music" those experiments with sound Stringtapper is referring to, in my opinion is just a cultural stretching, something conceptual, interesting, suggestive, whatever you want, but not objective (as music should be). The proof: without the sounds on which this so called "modern music" is built, it ceases to exist. On the contrary, music does.

Conclusion: "musique concrete" is "conceptual" art, based on manipulation of sound. It is not music. It is "conceputal art" and needs a cultural background to be understood. Infact children (pre-linguistic and a-cultural) won't percieve it as "music".

In my opinion, if your body does not start moving when listening to something called "music"... that is not music, but sound. Music is related to dance (in the meaning of rhytmic spontaneous movements of the body as first consequence). Beyond this, you enter something "conceptual" that cannot be called "music" anymore, unless you explain it is a "cultural provocation", "experiments with sounds", "audio manipulation", "conceptual music" and so on.

[regretfullySaid]

The pleasure for music is not due to the sound, but it is a consequence of ratio

Listen to the Four Seasons using pitch-crrected samples of cats in heat and tell me if that sounds pleasurable

Myr, what you call code in terms of music is defined as the score but without it being translated into sound it defeats the point.

Anyway, back to the OP, yes, electronic music focuses more on timbre, though regardless of the artists intention or not, they are still likely to choose pitches that are traditionally musically pleasant whether on purpose or not. Why does it have to be one or the other?

They're both important.

[myrnova]

The pleasure for music is not due to the sound, but it is a consequence of ratio

Listen to the Four Seasons using pitch-crrected samples of cats in heat and tell me if that sounds pleasurable

That is because you are "expecting something" from it, as a listener (due to your experience, culture, knowledge, anticipation, tastes, feelings etc.). I am talking as a composer. In that case, violins are the best, but even cats work. For the composer the pleasure is in the tension and in the jumps of intervals.

Again, I am talking of music, not about "the sound of music".

[regretfullySaid]

Yeah but your clinginess to the semantics is, well, fucking retarded. As long as the person on the receiving end understands what the other person saying, then semantics isn't the highest priority; The point has gotten across. You can draw the line between score vs timbre all you want; that's masturbatory. Meanwhile, when normal people want to "listen" to music, they use their ears. When they want to write it, they use their eyes, or their ears. From a composing standpoint, I'm surprised you haven't used the term score instead of code. Let me guess, you were just dumbing it down?

[myrnova]

Yeah but your clinginess to the semantics is, well, fucking retarded. As long as the person on the receiving end understands what the other person saying, then semantics isn't the highest priority; The point has gotten across. You can draw the line between score vs timbre all you want; that's masturbatory. Meanwhile, when normal people want to "listen" to music, they use their ears. When they want to write it, they use their eyes, or their ears. From a composing standpoint, I'm surprised you haven't used the term score instead of code. Let me guess, you were just dumbing it down?

The code has nothing to do with the score. The code is the way you can interpret music as a listener (e.g. a 1 y.o. child: pre-cultural, pre-linguistic perception) and feel music as a composer (intervals, relations between notes in time).

The "score" is just a conventional way to put this code (universal, pre-linguistic, a-cultural) on sheet.

It is like language: you don't have to be able to write and read to speak your tongue, it is something "natural". Writing is just a way to put language code ("universal grammar", see Chomsky etc.) on paper (semiotic science, linguistic etc.).

[regretfullySaid]

Ok, so what you mean as code is the subjective interpretation of the listener which has a cultural basis?

Ok fine, you can read the score and imagine it as any timbre you want, and technically a score is music, but it just isn't as pleasurable as hearing it physically.
You can show someone sheet music and tell them it's music, but it's meant to be played physically.

What's wrong with just using the manner of speaking that listening to the translation is music? WTF?
What's wrong with someone calling something they find pleasurable to listen to as music?

[myrnova]

Ok, so what you mean as code is the subjective interpretation of the listener which has a cultural basis?

Ok fine, you can read the score and imagine it as any timbre you want, but it just isn't as pleasurable as hearing it physically.
Do you know what fun is?

No, you misunderstood completely! On the contrary, the code is something OBJECTIVE, because universal and pre-cultural. 1 y.o. children can perceive the difference between "music" and "sound" because of the code. It is even "pre-linguistic".

Now, "Musique concrete" and so called "modern music" on the contrary is "subjective" because it contains non-universal elements (you have to "understand it" with your cultural background while pretending the noise of a train is "music", special effects, flushes, splashes etc. are "music" and so on). It is something "conceptual"... "conceptual art", "manipulation of sounds", whatever you want. But it is not music. Understand?

[regretfullySaid]

Okay whatever dude this is a lame ass argument.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/music

mu·sic noun, often attributive \?myü-zik\
: sounds that are sung by voices or played on musical instruments

: written or printed symbols showing how music should be played or sung

: the art or skill of creating or performing music

Full Definition of MUSIC

1
a : the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity
b : vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony
2
a : an agreeable sound : euphony <her voice was music to my ears>
b : musical quality <the music of verse>
3
: a musical accompaniment <a play set to music>
4
: the score of a musical composition set down on paper
5
: a distinctive type or category of music <there is a music for everybody — Eric Salzman>
See music defined for English-language learners »
See music defined for kids »
Examples of MUSIC

This is one of my favorite pieces of music.
performing music in front of an audience
dancing to the music of a big band
They are writing music for a new album.
a song with music by George Gershwin and words by Ira Gershwin
He is learning to read music.
She studied music in college.
Origin of MUSIC

Middle English musik, from Anglo-French musike, from Latin musica, from Greek mousik? any art presided over by the Muses, especially music, from feminine of mousikos of the Muses, from Mousa Muse
First Known Use: 13th century
Other Music Terms

cacophony, chorister, concerto, counterpoint, madrigal, obbligato, presto, presto, refrain, riff, segue
music noun (Concise Encyclopedia)
Art concerned with combining vocal or instrumental sounds for beauty of form or emotional expression, usually according to cultural standards of rhythm, melody, and, in most Western music, harmony. Music most often implies sounds with distinct pitches that are arranged into melodies and organized into patterns of rhythm and metre. The melody will usually be in a certain key or mode, and in Western music it will often suggest harmony that may be made explicit as accompanying chords or counterpoint. Music is an art that, in one guise or another, permeates every human society. It is used for such varied social purposes as ritual, worship, coordination of movement, communication, and entertainment.

[myrnova]

the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity

There is no need to copy-paste an entire enciclopedia to confirm what I am trying to explain

That is what Strintapper denies. He claims "music" can be even "manipulation of sound". In my opinion, music is the code, so "manipulation of sound" is not music, but "sound engeenering", "playing with sounds", "conceptual art", "sound collage"... whatever.

Music is just "notes in time". Universally accepted, easy to understand, percieved even by children. The rest is SOUND.

[regretfullySaid]

[myrnova]

What's wrong with someone calling something they find pleasurable to listen to as music?

Nothing wrong, if you are not a musician. For instance, you can call "music" your cat jumping on the piano, the noise of a train, a storm, whatever. If you are a musician, on the contrary, you can call it "inspiring sounds", "nice sound manipulation", "a suggestive sound effect", "a cultural provocation", "audio collage", "conceptual art", "art of noises" etc. Music is something different.

[scott nathaniel]

Music is just "notes in time". Universally accepted, easy to understand, percieved even by children. The rest is SOUND.

What's a note?

[regretfullySaid]

You could call music a lot of things, because it is.
Isn't the point of language to communicate? So if the other person understands what you're saying then clinging to semantics after the fact is masturbation. I think there are a lot of people will wholeheartedly stand beside you with your definition of music. It is not incorrect. It is stiff thinking however, so you got that going for you.


"Technically, music is not sound"

[stringtapper]

On the contrary, the code is something OBJECTIVE, because universal and pre-cultural. 1 y.o. children can perceive the difference between "music" and "sound" because of the code. It is even "pre-linguistic".

Utter nonsense. Go to a tribe in Africa and they will know fuck all about your "code." This is basic ethnomusicology 101. The idea of a universal musical language intrinsic to humans is a long outmoded idea that only extreme conservative or ethnocentrist minds would still believe.

Please stop using the "universal code" line unless you can provide some compelling peer reviewed research that supports this strange, old fashioned, conservative belief of yours.

[re:dream]

I will say one thing for myrnova. Whoever he she or it is, they sure know how to derail a thread

stringtapper was asking a very interesting question about the formal ways in which music can be encoded.

myrnova proceeded to make it all about this tired old music versus sound debate and took position which is

(1) completely wrong

but more importantly

(2) quite irrlevant to the OS's point

So now instead of being about the stuff that stringtapper wants to talk about, it is about

(1) a completely boring structuralist-versus experientialist discussion about notes and music in which all that matters is
(2) whether myrnova is right or wrong

And the issue that the OS wanted to put on the table has been forgotten.

Myrnova, I don't know who you are, but what you are doing is rude. It can be forgiven were you a boy of 13-18 years old, because those are all gonads and no sense. But from a human adult I would expect more.

stringtapper, I suggest you either abandnd the post, start another thread, or, you know what, let's pm each other about the issue

*sigh*