What does a stone sound like?

[re:dream]

myrnova. you have stated your position many times. Your definition of music takes a very well established route.

You are resorting to abstract essentialism. This is an approach that tries to something (X) by trying to distinguish between the essential properties of the something and its accidental properties.

Abstract essentialism dominated early classical thought (Aristotle, Plato) but in the last 500 years or so it's tended to go out of favour.

One of the reasons is that it descends too easily simply into dogmatic assertion.

Having chosen one abstract property of a X as its essenence, how does one deal with the appearance of examples of X that do not have that property?

One easy strategy is to simply deny that the phenomenon is an example of X. So if an essential aspect of a swan is that it is white, the appearance of a black swan is dealt with simply by asserting that it ain't a swan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

But the problem is that your reasoning is now circular. It depends on simple, dogmatic assertion, and not on observation. And your definition, while dealing very well with the subclass of phenomena that do conform with your description, is completely silent on those that don't.

This becomes a particularly serious problem when the commonly accepted discourse about X starts to diverge more and more from your essentialist definition of it. Then your definition of X appears to be more and more a kind of backward conservatism, defending an outdated understanding of the something against everybody else. The discussion can all to easily just start going round and round in circles, driven not by empirical evidence or exchange of ideas, but by the underlying assumptions that were made in the beginning. Like a fly buzzing around in a fly-bottle.

This is very boring. But it can go on for years.

[myrnova]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u573PyXo-pY



My last post in the thread called "on music" ended with a "bye bye" as soon as I proved I was right, a week ago or smth. After that I never read it, because I am not very interested in "sound manipulation art" (as stringtapper calls "modern music"). My aim there was just to prove that: (1) music has a universal code which has nothing to do with sound; (2) 80-90% of the american users here think that music is sound, that is why they call music "sound" and viceversa, and talk about sound manipulation art as "music"; (3) most of them were not really interested in the music/audio debate, they were just trolling.

The topic here is about real music and its code (intervals and mathematic relations), not about sound. Besides, Peter Neubaecker is the inventor of Celemony DNA (detection of notes in poliphonic audio material). In other words, he is an expert of "sound" (the phisical phenomenon called by americans "music"). The fact he found a way to "extract" notes (music) from audio material (sound) is one of the main demonstrations that music (the code) and audio (soundwaves) are two different things.

Nonsense. The only mathematical element that is common to ALL cultures of music throughout history is the octave - although the pentatonic scale has been featured in a lot of them.

It's also been proven that tolerance to dissonance (ie mathematically complex, non relational frequencies) increases with exposure to music - which is why a lot of classically trained musicians can enjoy dissonant music like Penderecki's Threnody for Hiroshima. Penderecki was Polish by the way - dissonance is not the preserve of the Americans -

It should also be noted that most of the music we listen to is not mathematically perfect but is a bodge - prior to the "well tempered klavier", instruments were tuned to a specific key because the intervals in "well temperament" are all slightly off so that it's possible to modulate keys within a piece of music and it sounds in tune. The ancient Greeks used an entirely different scale - and to their ears our music would sound strange and dissonant. Also - Arabic scales use microtones.

All sound is music and all music is sound.

(1) he means mathematical code is universal (pre-cultural), not the mathematical elements in music notation (representation of music: cultural)
(2) dissonance is music. It is coded and perceived as music. Otherwise (when not perceived as music) it remains "sound" (usually "noise"). Some people consider these not musical noises "music" as a consequence of cultural background: it's all conceptual. Infact that avant-guard niche is conceptual. A child (prelinguistic, a-cultural) won't recognize it as music.
(3) scales and microtones (and dissonance) are music, not "sound". Infact everybody recognize them as "music", no matter of their cultural background, ethnicity, age and such.

The rest is art of sound. Musc is before sound. I agree with Neubaecker. Nowadays kids manipulate sounds and the final result sometimes resembles "music". Is this "music"? In my opinion: in the U.S. yes, it is (always: because for americans sound is music, both for the composer and for the listener); in Europe only when they perform this manipulation live. Otherwise it is just sound ("sound of music").

That is why in Europe only midi tracks are considered "music" in a sequencer, while audio tracks just "sound". In America, on tue contrary, both are considered "music" (because they both "sound as music").

Regarding classically trained musicians: when they play rock music they sound like a midifile

[myrnova]

If an essential aspect of a swan is that it is white, the appearance of a black swan is dealt with simply by asserting that it ain't a swan. This becomes a particularly serious problem when the commonly accepted discourse about X starts to diverge more and more from your essentialist definition of it.

And that is why stringtapper and his american mates are wrong. They consider music "all white swans" (sound). On the contrary, what makes a swan a swan is not the color ("timbre"), but its structure ("code") which is universal. The fact 0,001% of people claim "a black swan is a different swan" (read: "music is the sound") does not mean music is that sound ("white swan" or "black swan"... or "pink swan" or whatever). It is only a (wrong) conceptual assertion. Here is the paradox and here is the mistake: stringtapper considers music as "the color" (for him "the white swan" is different from "the black swan": different sound/timbre = different "music": phenomenon). I consider music as "the code" ("the swan" as a universal structure, no matter which color it can be: categories). And that is why even a child can recognize the difference between a swan (white, black whatever) and e.g. a tree. For stringtapper, on the contrary, the only reality is given by "white swans": because he mixes up categories and phenomena. He thinks "now I change the color of the swan, from white to black, this is very important and this changes things". For musicians on the contrary this modification ("timbre modification") is useless, and changes nothing in the structure of the "swan" (music).

In a philosophical perspective, usually conservative people (e.g. stringtapper) tend to do like that (example: human races, divided into skin color etc.), while progressists (e.g. myself) accept and look for the universal code (humans).

When Strngtapper quotes so called "modern music" actually he is referring to a '900 avant-guarde niche (0,001% of music worldwide). It wasn't innovative, alas. It can be interesting, though. But it's all conceptual, it added nothing to universal music perception (which must be prelinguistic and a-cultural) and must be considered "art of sound modification", not "music".

[myrnova]

most of them were not really interested in the music/audio debate, they were just trolling.

That's because my thread was not about your music/audio debate. You chose to enter my thread and make it about that. You were actually off topic. Now that I know you will no longer be posting in that thread I will be happy to continue the discussion there.

Wrong. I was ON topic, as you can read:

TOPIC "On (modern) Music" (in brief)

(in red: OT and trolling)

Stringtapper: The thing about modern music is that the traditional conception of a "note" doesn't really apply these days. This makes traditional music theory useless. Discuss.

Bagatell: I don't see any symphony orchestras abandoning notation any time soon. I can't think of any electronic musicians who would want their work reproduced exactly, apart from selling you one of their CDs.

Myrnova: that is because in Europe music is the code (a language: notes). In the U.S. on the contrary people call "music" even the sound, noises, effects, etc. For them there is no difference between music (the code) and audio (the sound).

The finn: I don't think it has anything to do with the difference between Europe and the U.S. With the advent of electronically produced music other aspects of the musical experience (timbre, spatial characteristics) are much more manipulable.

Myrnova: Timbre and spacial characteristics have nothing to do with music code. They are just elements of the sound. That is why so called "modern music" can be called "art of manipulating sounds", but not music.

The Finn: I absolutely disagree. Music is the sound.

Myrnova: No, musc is not "the sound", music is a code. The difference between music and sound: music is a human activity, like language, writing, maths etc., it is a matter of mathematic relations; the sound is a natural phenomenon (you can think music, you cannot think sound).

Stringtapper: Of course myrnova's contention that sound-based music is a US phenomenon is complete and utter nonsense, Pierre Schaeffer (French) was arguably the first to introduce the concept of music that lies beyond traditional note-based conventions.

Myrnova: infact I never claimed that. I just consider modern music "experments with sound", not music. Musicians don't sculpt sound, they create relations (between given tones). The ones who sculpture sound are called "audio engineers", not musicians. Unless you consider "timbre" a musical element.

Crofter: you are entitled to shut the fuck up.

Myrnova: Music has more to do with communication (language) and math relations/ratio than with sound. While sound is a physical phenomenon, music just runs on sound, but sound is not strictly necessar for music. Here starts the confusion between "american concept of music" (music is sound: no sound no music) and "european" (music is a human code: music is BEFORE sound).

The finn: I am getting bored and we are going off topic, and round in circles.

Myrnova: it is not off topic at all, infact the topic is: The thing about modern music is that the traditional conception of a "note" doesn't really apply these days: discuss. Now, 99,9% of music worldwide is actually still based on notation, even nowadays. What Stringtapper calls "modern music" is a niche '900 avant-guard conceptual art based on "manipulation of timbre". Interesting. BUT: it is not music. The proof? Children won't recognize it as "music".

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

Myrnova: 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). "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". Music contains a universal code, pre-linguistic and a-cultural. That is why even 1 y.o. children recognize it.

shadx312: fuck the children.

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

Stringtapper: Yeah it's a shame. Another thread spirals into the shit house because of the Autistic Italian.

crumhorn: The vast majority of working musicians still rely very heavily on notes. I feel the distinction is not between modern or (ancient?) but between tonal and non tonal, a distinction which has always existed. If you creating the musical equivalent of sculpture then maybe any kind of codification scheme - beyond what is necessary to work in a quantized, digitized world - would be against the very spirit of what you are doing. It is only possible to reduce something to a code if it has some kind of guiding structural principles. If musicians working in this field (which I agree with myr9Vnova is a very minority interest) want a system to codify their music then they first need to make a theory pinning down the structural concepts that are represented by the symbols in their system of notation. But then it starts to resemble architecture more than sculpture.

myrnova: you could even create a new code for sound manipulation, yet it is not possible to call it "music". 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".

Stringtapper: 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.

myrnova: (1) A tribe in Africa will produce "chants" and rhythms which follow the universal human code (music). No matter if they don't know it is a "universal" process. (2) "Universal code" has nothing to do with a conservative belief, it is related with human characteristics. The proof: childre (black, white, whatever) naturally recognize music, language, faces and such: no matter if they can conceptualize them: it is something "pre-cultural". "Ethnocentrism" is when fascists claim "ours are the real arts, the most complex and perfect" etc. It has nothng to do with "universal code". Fascists and ethnocentric iditos deny there is a "universal code", they believe in "human races". By the way, I suggest you to change the title, e.g. "on timbre" (in order to avoid shadx, the finn and the others trolling)

rozling: false, ture, false, troll, true, false.

scott nathaniel: it seems some are using "traditional music theory" and "Western Tonal Harmony" interchangeably. Tonal Harmony breaks "all the fuck up" when attempting to apply it to modern music. Applying Myronva's childish rant that music is just "notes in time" is the same as saying words are just letters across a page.

myrnova: For your information, the definition of "notes in time" implies a universe so complex that an entire life is not even enough to understand it. And even nowadays Tonal Harmony is more than enough for 99,9% of music. The fact it cannot be applied to "modern music" is the proof "modern music" is not music, but "manipulation of sounds". The difference is not between "tonal harmony" and "modern music". The difference is between "music" (a human code which does not need sound to be an instrument of creation) and "sound" (a phisical phenomenon which can only be recorded and manipulated with modern technology, it does not belong to human thought). See "musica humana".

docprosper: call me a bully, but what exaclty is myrnova contributing? If anyone around here deserves the interwebs equivalent of a black eye it's myrnova.

scott nathaniel: no, we need him to enter and stay! Call myrnova "a douche always available"!

rozling: I am doubtful of his mental well being at this stage. If all that represents his true opinions etc he may need professional help.

rote fahne: it's all very clear what he is trying to tell, i dont have any difficultie to understand cause i already understood decades before i met him here on this forum. I am just trolling him because I don't like people that are too serious about themselves.

scott nathaniel: he has shown that he knows nothing.

the finn: do you think myrnova's a bot? I am thinking a kind of reverse Turing test here.

Scott nathaniel: I think he is an impetuous and eternal teenager who has mistaken being confrontational and contrary as traits of strength.

H20nly: I have a question. Please, myrnova don't answer because i'm not asking you, so there is no need to directly ignore you; since indirectly works just fine.

TomViolenz: I'm much closer to a biology major with a PhD in biochemistry. He sounds like my mother that one time I made the mistake to take her to a Modern Art exhibition: "Oh this is not art! I can't even recognize the shapes (code). Just give me a bucket of paint, and I make you 10 of this in an hour. So where are my millions...? Yada yada" It was quite cringe inducing! Just like your persistence to know it all... I'm out.

Myrnova: back to the topic: music is prelinguistic and precultural. Of course we don't know every aspect of its "code". Anyway, "Modern music" is just manipulation of sounds and/or recordings or conceptual provocation. Can be interesting, cool, whatever, but it is not music, because:
(a) it needs a cultural background to be understood (on the contrary, music is a-cultural)
(b) it has no universal codes (on the contrary, music has a universal code)
(c) once sounds disappears, even "modern music" ceases to exist. Music, on the contrary, exists even without the sound.
This does not mean "modern music" is not an art. Only, it is "art of sound", conceptual. See all '900 avant-guarde conceptual artistic movements (not only musical, but figurative, too: Piero Manzoni, Duchamp, etc.).

Shadx312: "artist's shit? That pretty much sums up your presence here really well! Feel free to open up the tins and enjoy the poop fight!

Myrnova: it is not my fault if you don'even know the connections between modern music and the rest. My suggestion: open a book and read it, section "'900 avant-guard artistic movements: figurative, music, literature, cinema", learn and understand the connections between Manzoni's "Artist's Shit" and Stringtapper's "idols'" works, then come back and start writing something more interesting and serious for the matter ("on modern music"), rather than insulting bull(y)shit.

Your question was: The thing about modern music is that the traditional conception of a "note" doesn't really apply these days: discuss. So, it is not my fault if you start a thread called "on music" in which you write "discuss" while meaning "let's now talk about how beautiful and interesting so called modern music is!" (in a topic called "on music"?)

The solution, in my opinion is this (already suggested there): modify the title (from "on music" to "modern avant-guard music, musique concrete etc." and avoid asking people "are notes still important in modern music?" in a thread called "on music"

[myrnova]

(for the record) viewtopic.php?f=40&t=198491

The thing about modern music is that the traditional conception of a "note" doesn't really apply these days.

We have the ability to sculpt things that some call "sound objects" that defy the old conceptions of a "note" and are more akin to the concept of sculpture wherein an "object" (sound) can be modified to the point of being indistinguishable from the original sound that we started with.

This makes traditional music theory useless and means that we have to come up with an entirely new way of codifying our methods.

Discuss.

[re:dream]

stringtapper and his american mates .

Why do you persist with this kind of unpleasant name calling? It is neither relevant nor accurate.

[myrnova]

stringtapper and his american mates .

Why do you persist with this kind of unpleasant name calling? It is neither relevant nor accurate.

because they are americans

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXafKQ_7Pu4



Italy yay!

is this "relevant and accurate"? mmm.... "strange" you did not ask the same question to H20nly

[re:dream]

They consider music "all white swans" (sound). (etc etc etx)
On the contrary, what makes a swan a swan is not the color ("timbre"), but its structure ("code") which is universal. The fact 0,001% of people claim "a black swan is a different swan" (read: "music is the sound") does not mean music is that sound ("white swan" or "black swan"... or "pink swan" or whatever). It is only a (wrong) conceptual assertion. Here is the paradox and here is the mistake: stringtapper considers music as "the color" (for him "the white swan" is different from "the black swan": different sound/timbre = different "music": phenomenon). I consider music as "the code" ("the swan" as a universal structure, no matter which color it can be: categories). And that is why even a child can recognize the difference between a swan (white, black whatever) and e.g. a tree. For stringtapper, on the contrary, the only reality is given by "white swans": because he mixes up categories and phenomena. He thinks "now I change the color of the swan, from white to black, this is very important and this changes things". For musicians on the contrary this modification ("timbre modification") is useless, and changes nothing in the structure of the "swan" (music).

In a philosophical perspective, usually conservative people (e.g. stringtapper) tend to do like that (example: human races, divided into skin color etc.), while progressists (e.g. myself) accept and look for the universal code (humans).

When Strngtapper quotes so called "modern music" actually he is referring to a '900 avant-guarde niche (0,001% of music worldwide). It wasn't innovative, alas. It can be interesting, though. But it's all conceptual, it added nothing to universal music perception (which must be prelinguistic and a-cultural) and must be considered "art of sound modification", not "music".

Stringtapper made it very clear (later on) that he was talking about a specific kind of music where musical notation is no longer a helpful code. He was interested in thinking how you could encode it. You basically responded by saying that is not music and therefore his problem is not interesting; which is where I formed my impression of you as being arrogant and closed minded. I may be wrong. But I haven't once seen you actually listen to and take aboard something anyone else says.

As for swans etc etc, I don't get what you are trying to say. I think you misunderstand my example and take it out of context. (What 'defines' a swan, incidentally, is not a 'universal structure' - whatever that may mean. These days it will be a matter of cladistics and the conventions of evolutionary biology, in terms of which a group of experts will agree that a certain genetically related group of birds (which may or may not look exactly the same, and which may differ somewhat in terms of biological structure) are all by agreement classified within a certain biological family. (Much as in music, a broad minded group of people actually interested in learning from one another and about music, might agree to adopt an open-textured and inclusive definition of music rather than an essentialist one). But anyway, that's a side issue.

More to the point, I do think you are wrong about musical perception being universal. Neubacker's quotes Leibnitz's theory that the pleasure that people get from music comes from the brain's enjoyment of the underlying mathematical relationships. That was an interesting idea in Leibnitz's time, and I can see that it's an important part of Neubacker's rather mystic take on things, but the scientific understanding of the human experience of music has moved on a bit since Leibnitz's time. As I understand it, neuroscientific and congnitive studies of musical perception seems to be indicating a very different picture. There is indeed a broad human predisposition to understanding music which is universal ("musicophilia" some call it), similar to the universal human predisposition to understanding language. (So as Noam Chomsky pointed out, regardless of what culture a baby is born in, it will universally have this linguistic predisposition) But like language, the appreciation, perception and neural processing of music is highly culturally specific. Even Chomsky never claimed that there is a universal grammar. The innate ability to process language always happens within a specific language, with its own rules. So with music. There is no 'universal musical language'. There are only specific, culturally located languages. And neural processing music, it seems, is very driven by the way the brain responds to the building up, satisfaction and interruption of expectation within the culturally specific and genre specific rules of particular forms of music.

This seems to me to be a much more interesting way of thinking about music than trying to make it about an underlying set of musical /mathematical relationships that matter particularly within particular European musical traditions, and then trying to define all of human musical experience in terms of these concerns. From where I stand, that seems to me to be Eurocentric and culturally arrogant.

[myrnova]

Stringtapper made it very clear (later on) that he was talking about a specific kind of music where musical notation is no longer a helpful code.

Wrong. Stringtapper started a thread called "on music" (not "on so called modern music" or such) and in his very first post he wrote:

The thing about modern music is that the traditional conception of a "note" doesn't really apply these days.

We have the ability to sculpt things that some call "sound objects" that defy the old conceptions of a "note" and are more akin to the concept of sculpture wherein an "object" (sound) can be modified to the point of being indistinguishable from the original sound that we started with.

This makes traditional music theory useless and means that we have to come up with an entirely new way of codifying our methods.

Discuss.

That is why:

(1) I was ON topic.
(2) most of people there were not interested in music debate at all, they were just trolling and bullying (yourself included)
(3) I suggested him to modify the title (from "on music" to "on so called modern music" or smth)
(4) Once he claimed he just wanted to talk about that avant-guard niche movement I replied "ok, then bye bye, I am not very interested (since then I avoid entering that thread, as promised).

The proof:

(1) I started a new thread on (real) music and you (h20 etc.) immediately entered for trolling, posting OT links, mockery pictures, derailing the topic into a "Italy vs U.S." parody etc.
(2) H20only himself confirmed that was his aim.
(3) most of the trolls are americans because 80-90% of people here are from U.S. (the moderator included).
(4) people from different countries or with different points of view (e.g. antiamerican) are considered "enemies" and massively mocked/trolled or even warned by the (american) moderator which considers antiamericanism something "offensive", "prejudice" and such (actually, it is just a legitimate political point of view... expecially in a supposed international forum)
(5) Of course american moderators will ban people like me, not H20nly, shadx and the other angloamerican trolls. I call this attitude "brainwashing U.S. propaganda". It is due to the same "background" (same tongue, same understood humour, feelings, belief etc.). I guess americans do not even realize what I am talking about, though. So I am not that surprised about all this, I just proved I am right. Period.

[H20nly]

[myrnova]

As I understand it, neuroscientific and congnitive studies of musical perception seems to be indicating a very different picture.

And here is your mistake and misunderstanding. "Universal music code" as described by Neubaeker (which you call "rather mystic") has nothing to do with neuroscience. It is supposed to be an "Art" code. Neuroscientific and cognitive studies can be interesting, but have no importance in music theory. It is like psicolinguistic studies about human language: both the writer and the readers don't need to know them in order to create/read poetry, poems, novels etc. It is called "literature" (see Shakespeare, Dante, Garcia Marquez, Dostoievskij etc.). Neither so called "modern music" nor neuroscience have changed and will ever change anything in universal "music perception" (as an art code). Your "mistake" is to consider music a "phenomenon" instead of a "code". That is why I consider "modern music" art. Only, I prefer to call it "sound/timbre modification art" (that's what it is). "Music" is when even children in their prelinguistic and a-cultural phases recognize it as "music" (universal code).

[re:dream]

(1) I started a new thread on (real) music and you (h20 etc.) immediately entered for trolling, posting OT links, mockery pictures, derailing the topic into a "Italy vs U.S." parody etc.

Fair enough. I wasn't very nice. I guess I was responding to your notion that the kind of music that you like is 'real' music, and the other stuff isn't really 'real' music, not 'innovation' etc. I have to confess I find that kind of attitude unbelievably arrogant and closed minded

I just proved I am right. Period.

I guess I come to this forum more for learning, debating, exchanging ideas - in other words, to take the risk of having my own mind changed and enriched. Rather than for that experience of feeling that I am right. That obviously matters greatly to you. Different strokes for different folks.

[myrnova]

Fair enough. I wasn't very nice. I guess I was responding to your notion that the kind of music that you like is 'real' music, and the other stuff isn't really 'real' music, not 'innovation' etc. I have to confess I find that kind of attitude unbelievably arrogant and closed minded

So you are just confirming your opinions (prejudice) about my (supposed) personality, attitude, tastes, belief etc. caused your consequent trolling. That is what I wanted to prove, and the difference between my posts and yours

[stringtapper]

I guess I come to this forum more for learning, debating, exchanging ideas - in other words, to take the risk of having my own mind changed and enriched.

What a novel idea.

[stringtapper]

So you are just confirming your opinions (prejudice) about my (supposed) personality, attitude, tastes, belief etc. caused your consequent trolling. That is what I wanted to prove, and the difference between my posts and yours

You obviously don't even understand definitions of basic English words, like prejudice. Prejudice means to judge something before you know anything about it.

Anyone who has read a post of yours knows plenty enough to judge you.

You are not interested in debate or discussion. You are interested in being right. You are interested in saying the same thing over and over again instead of truly engaging and responding to what anyone else says.

There's a complete record of it on this forum. The evidence is insurmountable.

I suspect you must be either mentally unstable or have some form of autism. I lean towards the autism because of the repetition.