This documentary I'm in (noise/experimental "music" content)

[BonsoWonderDog]

There is only one true religion.

[The Audacity Works]

If I accidentally record ten minutes of random street noise and accidentally press [bURN CD], is it music? What if I choose to call it music? What if I assign it to a pad on a sampling drum machine and trigger that ten minute sample and burn the result to a CD? Is it music then? Is it more musical than if I accidentally pressed [bURN CD], even though the end result is bit-for-bit identical?

 

What if I cut the ten minute file in half, move the front half behind the last half, and rebounce and burn? Is that more musical?

 

What if I randomly toss a cigarette butt on the floor? Is that art? What if I choose to call the collective floor and cigarette butt "minimalist installation art"? Is the noise the cigarette butt makes when it hits the floor music?

 

 

 

Actually, I'm less interested in the definition of "music" than the definition of "compose" in regards to music.

 

For example, if I drag three ACID loops to the timeline and do nothing else, did I just compose a piece of music? What if my speakers were off and the computer monitor was obscured and I accidentally clicked on three random loops, which may or may not be in the same tempo or key (hell, let's say they are)

[carbon111]

The performance of sound is constantly around us.

 

Yep.

 

I'm not of the opinion that it's music in any sense other than the poetic however.

 

Oh I don't know about that...I think the environment can be very musical if a bit aleatoric. I keep a field recorder close at hand because some ambiences are wonderful by themselves and some can be "coaxed" into being musical via electronic processing.

[akliner]

Yep. Oh I don't know about that...I think the environment can be very musical if a bit aleatoric. I keep a field recorder close at hand becaus some ambiences are wonerful by themselves and some can be "coaxed" into being musical via electronic processing.

Yeah I'm starting to think about the delineation between "musical" and "music".

Can something be "musical" without actually being music?

[pgunders]

Remember, I have been talking about the CONVENTIONAL AND TRADITIONAL definition of music. In these conventions and traditions, sounds have been tonal and time has been in a time signature. This is convention and tradition I'm working with. {censored}, I'm not even saying that I think that sound and time can be expressed and measured differently. I'm talking about the convention of music throughout history. Only. Got it?

 

 

Definitely don't write that in your 30 page paper on rock and theater--you'll get slaughtered. I can see the red ink in the margin already: "Conventional and traditional according to whom?" "Throughout whose history?" The species homo sapiens has been making music for millinia, most of it unscored and most of it atonal. Professors in the liberal arts relish few things more than breaking the intellectual knees of undergrad Eurocentrists.

[akliner]

 

Definitely don't write that in your 30 page paper on rock and theater--you'll get slaughtered. I can see the red ink in the margin already: "Conventional and traditional according to whom?" "Throughout whose history?" The species homo sapiens has been making music for millinia, most of it unscored and most of it atonal. Professors in the liberal arts relish few things more than breaking the intellectual knees of undergrad Eurocentrists.

 

 

Thanks, I'll be fine. :phil:

 

I'm tired of repeating myself. Conventional and Traditional according to how music is taught today in regards to the development of that system for the past hundreds of years. It hasn't changed. Notes on a staff...time signatures.

 

Please, PLEASE, refute that.

 

PLEEEEASE. I'm begging you.

 

 

The species homo sapiens has been making music for millinia, most of it unscored and most of it atonal .

 

 

Actually, in tribal chanting, mourning, etc. the vocal work is very tonal, underscored (at times) by consistent timing on a crude percussion device. These chants were in service to a ceremony of some sort...as was drama. In that regard, music and theatre evolved together.

 

In fact, Aristotle puts "Song" as the second to last important element of tragedy in the Poetics. It ranks above spectacle, even.

 

If you're at all interested in any of that work being brought to vocal training today, you should look at the work that the Roy Haart company did and what his master students are still doing. I studied with one during week-long vocal intensive...INTENSE to say the least.

[Re-Member]

So I'm apparently not making music on tracks where I don't use a time signature or your defined "sounds"? Thanks, I had no idea.

 

Yup, and apparently by his definitions I can record myself farting into a microphone, use an electronic guitar tuner to figure out it's actual musical pitch, then sequence it to loop in two notes with random alternating time signatures while presenting it as real music.

 

No one could argue otherwise, and I could even be the next Mozart 100 years from now as long as I wrote it down on sheet music.

 

"Fart in E Minor: An Ode to Real Music"

[akliner]

Yup, and apparently by his definitions I can record myself farting into a microphone, use an electronic guitar tuner to figure out it's actual musical pitch, then sequence it to loop in two notes with random alternating time signatures while presenting it as real music. No one could argue otherwise, and I could even be the next Mozart 100 years from now as long as I wrote it down on sheet music.

Yup. That's exactly what I've said.

You got it. 100%.

Great job!

You did so nicely!

Excellent work!

You have won the prize.

You get a 2 boxes of Hamburger Helper and a Diet Dr. Pepper!

[mildbill]

.... If only the creator can choose whether or not his creation is music or art, does that mean I can legitimately insist my fart and cigarette butt in a room be called a multimedia extravaganza? ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some people do exactly that.

[The Audacity Works]

Some people do exactly that.

Thanks. Now I just have to empirically define the "legitimately" part of "legitimately insist". Sigh...

[BonsoWonderDog]

[mildbill]

Yup, and apparently by his definitions I can record myself farting into a microphone, use an electronic guitar tuner to figure out it's actual musical pitch, then sequence it to loop in two notes with random alternating time signatures while presenting it as real music. ...

 

 

 

 

Type 'fart song' in the search box at youtube and you might be surprised at the number of results.

[mildbill]

Thanks. Now I just have to empirically define the "legitimately" part of "legitimately insist". Sigh...

 

 

 

There lies the rub. 'Number of Sales' is one criteria. 'Acceptance by peers' is another. How about 'personal satisfaction'? 'Snubbing your nose at the established norms'?

 

An infinitely expandable list.

[sizzlemeister]

Just for the record a lot of people said Rap wasn't music. Some people still think this is true.

[BonsoWonderDog]

Rap is not music.

[mildbill]

Rap is not music.

[BonsoWonderDog]

How can you SAY such a thing !?!?!?

[sizzlemeister]

Disclaimer: I don't know {censored} about the noise genre. (I know a bit about 'sound' and 'music' tho). OK - The stuff that Allerian/Khate are doing, sounds to me like 'atmospheric' or 'soundscape' in that it has normally discernable pitches and timbres which vary over time. Merzbow (sp?) sounds more like 'noise' to me in that it's composed of simultaneous random frequencies varying in amplitude. (Think 'white', 'pink', 'red' noise, etc.) If both of these types of productions are considered part of the noise genre, then it covers too large an area to have a meaningful definition.

 

 

 

I'm squarely in mildbill's camp.

 

Which is not to say that most of what I listened to that is linked to in this thread is not enjoyable. I liked pretty much everything but the Merzbow recording. Only the latter though would I personally consider proper noise or "noise".

 

As for whether it's music or not - who cares? Honestly, where do you draw the line on what is "music" and what is not? Who defines for everyone what music is technically or otherwise? I can think of a whole bunch of recorded sounds, performed as a composition, arranged within a meter, with definitive tones based on Western structure that I STILL would not refer to as MUSIC, although it may very well be "music". Milli Vanilli comes to mind for instance.

[pighood]

*braamp*

 

 

[pgunders]

Thanks, I'll be fine. :phil: I'm tired of repeating myself. Conventional and Traditional according to how music is taught today in regards to the development of that system for the past hundreds of years. It hasn't changed. Notes on a staff...time signatures. Please, PLEASE, refute that. PLEEEEASE. I'm begging you.

The modern musical staff with its indication of time signature is just that--modern (and western in origin). Visit your school's music department and ask about the history of music notation around the world. I'm sure you'll get an earful. Better yet, ask when the current western notation system stopped evolving (Since, as you say, "It hasn't changed.").

Actually, in tribal chanting, mourning, etc. the vocal work is very tonal, underscored (at times) by consistent timing on a crude percussion device. These chants were in service to a ceremony of some sort...as was drama. In that regard, music and theatre evolved together.

Perhaps you're working from a private (dare I say non-traditional? ) definition of the word "atonal." Many atonal composers create their pieces on instruments that emit definite and readily identifiable pitches (just as tribal music can--but need not--have a definite pitch). Atonal music in European tradition has been a descriptor for music lacking a tonal center or key.

Percussion is a much more interesting criterion for defining sounds as music--but what is a tone if not the beating of air on the tympanum? What most of us call pitch is decidedly rhythmic in character.

In fact, Aristotle puts "Song" as the second to last important element of tragedy in the Poetics. It ranks above spectacle, even.

Sure--certainly in the west (the birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music, etc.). But it still bears repeating that, in an anthropoligist's terms, Aristotle is practically yesterday, and defining all "tradition" and all "history" in European terms (citing Aristotle won't earn you brownie points on this) will earn you some deserved criticism. All I'm really suggesting is that you scale back your language a bit: instead of saying "Music as it has been known in History and according to Tradition" you might try, "The tonal music that predominated in Europe and the Americas from the early modern period to the late nineteenth century..."

[synthetica]

If people enjoy listening to someone getting there teeth drilled during a train wreck then so be it. To each his own, just not for me. (Although now I too could become popular in another genre by turning the right knobs on my synths. Funny how most synths have a Noise knob, but never seen a Music knob... hehehehe)

My Vote goes to:
Music-No
Noise-Yes

The very definition of the "noise" genre says it is noise and not music:

noise /n??z/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[noiz] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, noised, nois

[droolmaster0]

Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, noised, nois

[akliner]

The modern musical staff with its indication of time signature is just that--modern (and western in origin). Visit your school's music department and ask about the history of music notation around the world. I'm sure you'll get an earful. Better yet, ask when the current western notation system stopped evolving (Since, as you say, "It hasn't changed."). Perhaps you're working from a private (dare I say non-traditional? ) definition of the word "atonal." Many atonal composers create their pieces on instruments that emit definite and readily identifiable pitches (just as tribal music can--but need not--have a definite pitch). Atonal music in European tradition has been a descriptor for music lacking a tonal center or key. Percussion is a much more interesting criterion for defining sounds as music--but what is a tone if not the beating of air on the tympanum? What most of us call pitch is decidedly rhythmic in character. Sure--certainly in the west (the birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music, etc.). But it still bears repeating that, in an anthropoligist's terms, Aristotle is practically yesterday, and defining all "tradition" and all "history" in European terms (citing Aristotle won't earn you brownie points on this) will earn you some deserved criticism. All I'm really suggesting is that you scale back your language a bit: instead of saying "Music as it has been known in History and according to Tradition" you might try, "The tonal music that predominated in Europe and the Americas from the early modern period to the late nineteenth century..."

 

I'm not going to get into the apologetics of a Euro-centric system because, frankly, I agree with you. I agree with you on most of this (actually, perhaps not the bit about the atonal chanting...though the mourners could not identify the key for some reason mourning arrived around the key of D minor in harmonies).

 

The real question is, aren't you trying a little to hard to discredit what I'm saying by nit-picking at the details?

 

When was the last time anybody in this forum used anything but the "Western" way of scoring or reading a score of music?

 

Sure, other forms exist. I was using the common language of Western notation as it is predominate in the musical world of the MODERN world. I realize that.

 

All I was doing this ENTIRE time was saying Noise does not fit into this convention. Therefore, by the standards of THIS CONVENTION noise is not music.

 

Yes I've misspoke a few times or have been a little unclear in my phrases, but the substance of my argument has not changed and it is not wrong. People can "Gotcha" or "Prove that" all they want, but the point remains what one of the people on the video even said "the definition of music is limiting" or something like that.

 

Trust me, I'm educated. You don't have to point me in the right direction or assume that I don't realize that I'm using Western disciplines as my measures of comparsion. It doesn't change the essential case: Western notation and convention is dominant. Noise cannot be scored in western notation. I am aware that in terms of age of humanity, the West (as a whole) is relatively new. I am aware of the art that existed (and still exists) outside of western convention.

[akliner]

Total idiocy. This is a {censored}ing vote, and a dictionary definition of noise decides whether it's music? The notion that people can listen to it AS music , and enjoy it thusly, but people like you can say that it really isn't RATHER than simply, "eccch. I don't like the stuff". That's really all it is.

 

 

That's an interesting modifier...

 

Just like Musical vs. Music.

[droolmaster0]

I'm not going to get into the apologetics of a Euro-centric system because, frankly, I agree with you. I agree with you on most of this (actually, perhaps not the bit about the atonal chanting...though the mourners could not identify the key for some reason mourning arrived around the key of D minor in harmonies). The real question is, aren't you trying a little to hard to discredit what I'm saying by nit-picking at the details? When was the last time anybody in this forum used anything but the "Western" way of scoring or reading a score of music? Sure, other forms exist. I was using the common language of Western notation as it is predominate in the musical world of the MODERN world. I realize that. All I was doing this ENTIRE time was saying Noise does not fit into this convention. Therefore, by the standards of THIS CONVENTION noise is not music. Yes I've misspoke a few times or have been a little unclear in my phrases, but the substance of my argument has not changed and it is not wrong. People can "Gotcha" or "Prove that" all they want, but the point remains what one of the people on the video even said "the definition of music is limiting" or something like that. Trust me, I'm educated. You don't have to point me in the right direction or assume that I don't realize that I'm using Western disciplines as my measures of comparsion. It doesn't change the essential case: Western notation and convention is dominant. Noise cannot be scored in western notation. I am aware that in terms of age of humanity, the West (as a whole) is relatively new. I am aware of the art that existed (and still exists) outside of western convention.

 

 

What is the {censored}ing point of saying that, given an antiquated definition of music, noise isn't music? I thought that we were discussing whether noise IS music, not whether it fit some old definition. Who cares? You're a raging idiot and you've wasted my time and other people's time with an academic (in the other sense) question which isn't difficult at all. Why SHOULD I trust you?