Thread proposal - Socratic discussion - What is Music?

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Okay - so there is a lot of discussion here about terminology. I haven't found anyone discussing questions with definite answers, other than ones that have engineering based solutions. Maybe I'm reading it wrong.

Anyway - even if this isn't the right question, maybe this is the right group to have this type of actual dialogue, as opposed to the off-topic fun we have elsewhere.

I'm sure this has been done before.. somewhere. This just reminds me of my old college days... just a thought experiment to poll for interest.

Maybe the answers will give foundations for other measures instead of comparisons to the "golden ear" standard we sometimes aspire to or the tone sweeps we like so much... or maybe they will go back to them both.

I don't know.
 
When I went to UCLA to study design, I had a professor who started out his class asking "What is art?" He sat down and let the students blab for a half hour. Then he got up, yawned and stretched and said, "Now that we've gotten that nonsense out of our system, let's get to work CREATING art." It was the last time the subject was mentioned.
 
When I went to UCLA to study design, I had a professor who started out his class asking "What is art?" He sat down and let the students blab for a half hour. Then he got up, yawned and stretched and said, "Now that we've gotten that nonsense out of our system, let's get to work CREATING art." It was the last time the subject was mentioned.

This professor gives me some hope for the future.
 
Very pleasing to my inner ears to read these. Keys that fit your locks. The most pleasing of good news. Hope. What about sound.

I'd like to continue this discussion, if we can entertain it further.

What is the form of music. Knowing the breadth of creations the idea is ascribed to, if it is music, what is the shape of it. Do we know it because it is a form itself or is it because we liken it to music in our own experience.

I don't know.
 
Music depends on who you ask...

My own made up idea - I haven't checked for prior art:

Music is as perceived or recalled, a simultaneous sense and individual reaction in constant time progression, serving in oral (aural?!) tradition, combining to convey a subjective human experience.

Okay just checked for prior art - looks like I haven't ripped off anybody directly but certainly not original.
 
What pleases the senses are patterns of stimulus, and often the more complex the patterns are while still maintaining an overall structure, the greater the pleasure. Abstract art like Jackson Pollacks's, by Australian Aborigines, does it for the eyes, why watching water rippling in on a large body of water is very soothing. Music is the equivalent for the ears, like someone massaging our back by rapidly and rhythmically triggering the nerve endings for touch.

When the stimulus happens and we don't have to put extra effort into "processing" it, then it works best. Which is the mark of high quality sound reproduction ...
 
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...I'm sure this has been done before.. somewhere. This just reminds me of my old college days... just a thought experiment to poll for interest...

For me it helps to try to narrow the scope of questions like these, to keep my head from exploding (I've only got the one - trying to squeeze a few more miles out of it).

First things first: Music is sound, as opposed to other types of sensory stimuli. After that, do we define it as sound produced intentionally as opposed to incidentally? Note that this would pertain to output, not input - production, not perception. Unfortunately this definition would exclude Cal's example, which was funny but also seriously feels like it should be included. :) So maybe intent doesn't enter into it.

Besides, like most things in life, intent and perception can work both ways. In these modern tech times I wonder if it might not be easier to define what isn't music. I know many of our parents used to complain that what we were listening to was not, but at least it was being performed by real people playing real instruments.

So much of what passes for modern music these days is actually just loops and beats, falling out of someone's computer. With regard to that I have come up with one definition that feels pretty solid, which is: If you have to press or click something to make it stop, then you're not making music. And I know that makes me sound a little like my parents, but I think this is a valid distinction. That stuff may be perceived as music to some (okay, millions), but to me it's just a product, like sonic spray-cheese or something.

-- Jim (puff, puff, pass... <cough>) :cool:
 
... like sonic spray-cheese or something.

-- Jim (puff, puff, pass... <cough>) :cool:

That, my friend is thirty two karat GOLD. I will admit though, I actually happen to enjoy my fair share of it. I think it has to do with the 60hz cycle and it's effect on the body... :p

If I recall correctly, that's the part that gets people engaged in that primordial dancing. If that is what it is, and it could just as well be clicked on by a computer then:

I for one welcome our robot overlord of music. :) j/k.

Okay - this is completely gratuitous, I just like typing that sentence - I don't really think that way. But I do propose that there is a place for it if we break music down to its most basic constituent parts and build from there.

I don't have a golden ear, even though I can still hear 15khz and it hurts!!

And I'm not an EE.

So perhaps that is another way to construct a paradigm - what is music not.

In the set of all sets, what is not present.
 
That, my friend is thirty two karat GOLD.

Thanks. That popped into my head about 20 years ago, on the old CEAudio forum on CompuServe. Anyone else remember that place? It was great fun to log onto with the old 1200-baud modem, heh. People like E. Brad Meyer, Ethan Winer, Ken Kantor, Corey Greenberg & many others were regs there. I guess it was pretty much the only game in town back then.

I will admit though, I actually happen to enjoy my fair share of it. I think it has to do with the 60hz cycle and it's effect on the body... :p

If I recall correctly, that's the part that gets people engaged in that primordial dancing.
That's important right there, I think. I'm so cynical about the production of that stuff that I disregard the effect it can have on people who are not me. Plus, watching me dance would be kinda like passing a bad car wreck on the highway, so, bitter about that a little. Anyway, even if we don't count the source and/or intent of the various interesting noises in our definition, we should probably factor in the perception and/or effects somehow.

...welcome our robot overlord of music...
Düde - You could sell a butt-load of those T-shirts, heh.

I don't have a golden ear, even though I can still hear 15khz and it hurts!!
You must be a young'un, heh. I remember having trouble staying in the same room with some of the larger CRT TVs back in the day - the flyback singing at 15.75 KHz really bugged me. I can still get out to around 13K, so for my age I'm a lucky guy.

-- Jim
 
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