Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Weight]

Music to me is a combination of sounds that induce certain feelings. Ideas expressed through sound. Music is a pattern, musicians are expert pattern creators, and story tellers. Certain rhythms can tell a story. Its all just math. What is your opinion on this wide subject.

[Gareth]

Weight said

"Music to me is a combination of sounds that induce certain feelings. Ideas expressed through sound. Music is a pattern, musicians are expert pattern creators, and story tellers. Certain rhythms can tell a story. Its all just math. What is your opinion on this wide subject."

What distinguishes this from say poetry.

imo music is sound that by-passes the rational part of our brain and feeds directly into those areas responsible for emotional response. No linguistic skills are required.

[MindlessPhil]

First of you have beat or rhythm. Then you might ask why do we move are bodies to this rhythm and why most animals will not?
Then you have tones or notes. These can set a mood or idea of what we should be feeling.

Then we add poetry to the sound and rhythm or words, which create a story and mood of the story and what the person is feeling or trying to say. As words have impact based on how we translate them, just like how we translate tones and rhythm.

[A Poster He or I]

I would add that both rhythm and tonality are optional components, not necessary components. A good portion of the music of my favorite Ambient artist, Steve Roach, has no rhythm, no melody, nor any tonality at all. These "songs" are just soundscapes, yet they evoke powerful emotional responses.

I will also add that the generation of musical ideas is often an entirely subjective experience: the ideas are generated by the LISTENER; they are not necessarily inherent in the music.

[stormy phillips]

A great companion................

[Zatoichi]

Music it is artistical vision of sound... So the next question is:"What is art"?

[Cyanse]

It is used in expressing what you feel and saying opinion out loud without getting obvious.

[DeathByThought]

Weight said

"Music to me is a combination of sounds that induce certain feelings. Ideas expressed through sound. Music is a pattern, musicians are expert pattern creators, and story tellers. Certain rhythms can tell a story. Its all just math. What is your opinion on this wide subject."

What distinguishes this from say poetry.

imo music is sound that by-passes the rational part of our brain and feeds directly into those areas responsible for emotional response. No linguistic skills are required.

Isn't music a pattern like speech? To recognize it, it has to be interpreted as a pattern. If just heard, it would be heard as separate notes but through giving it a meaning, through making the notes follow each other, we make it into a flow we call music. Without linguistic abilities there is no music. Without recognizing syntax one doesn't recognize music.

But do babies and severely mentally handicapped people react to music and if they do, through which mechanisms they perceive it? If they recognize rhythm and rock their bodies to it or it somehow soothes them, are they hearing the music too?

[A Poster He or I]

I'll have to disagree about the need for a linguistic appreciation of syntax to recognize music. House cats have been in my life since early childhood, and I've known 3 of them who went out of their way to listen to music. One would sit mesmerized by ambient techno, both rhythmic and without rhythm, her ears twisting to follow the stereo effects. Another I adopted as an adult cat who, as a kitten, grew up with hard rock always blaring. I discovered that hard rock would often make this cat docile. And my beloved cat who just succumbed to cancer last July, too young, would always stop whatever she was doing to listen to almost anything with a flute in it. I wondered if she thought it was birdsong.

I'm not claiming the cats knew what music was. I'm just convinced they could tell that it was something other than just ambient sounds, and they responded emotionally to something distinctive they heard in it.

[Dreager]

Music is a language and has many parallels to be drawn with speech. Our emotional understanding of both is somewhat innate. Music stimulates emotion even without prior harmonic/rhythmic knowledge, just as tones of voice communicate emotion without needing prior knowledge of language. But our intellectual understanding of both is enhanced through prior knowledge and practice. Jazz musicians develop the ability to use and hear more complex harmony through increased aural and theoretical knowledge, just as great orators develop the ability to use and understand more complex language. What sounds determine what emotional reaction is a product of biological evolution, natural reactions to sound stimuli. Our over-developed intellect then uses this innate emotional response as a foundation to build both music and language vocabularies for further stimulus.

[Prismatic]

The French organist and composer Louis Vierne found fault with the customary academic definition of music as "the art of combining sounds in a way agreeable to the ear." He preferred "Music is the mode of expression by sound of what we customarily call beauty." He felt that form in music was there only to make its essence perceptible and that the real source of art was in dreams—"Dream alone begets the work of art."

(Vierne, almost completely blind, was the titular at Notre Dame for nearly four decades and actually died in the midst of a recital there in 1937. He said something that has always stuck with me since I first read it:

«Everything must be payed for ... and the price is heavy, too heavy no doubt. Success comes too late, love goes away too soon, happiness never comes... I sometimes laugh to myself when people tell me the hardships of my childhood have been compensated by the gift of music».

[JacobAWyatt]

Music it is artistical vision of sound... So the next question is:"What is art"?

You are correct. No one else here is even close.

Art is self-referencing experience; i.e., an experience designed to be experienced for its own sake.

Music is art within an audio medium. Thus, music is self-referencing audio experience.

-- Updated April 25th, 2012, 3:58 pm to add the following --

The French organist and composer Louis Vierne found fault with the customary academic definition of music as "the art of combining sounds in a way agreeable to the ear." He preferred "Music is the mode of expression by sound of what we customarily call beauty." He felt that form in music was there only to make its essence perceptible and that the real source of art was in dreams—"Dream alone begets the work of art."

(Vierne, almost completely blind, was the titular at Notre Dame for nearly four decades and actually died in the midst of a recital there in 1937. He said something that has always stuck with me since I first read it:

«Everything must be payed for ... and the price is heavy, too heavy no doubt. Success comes too late, love goes away too soon, happiness never comes... I sometimes laugh to myself when people tell me the hardships of my childhood have been compensated by the gift of music».

This begs the question of what beauty amounts to, and I have heard many pieces of music (some of which are quite good, when judged on their own terms) which I would not describe as "beautiful;" take the second movement of Shostakovich's 10th symphony, for example, or most of Sevendust's songs.

This definition is far too narrow.

-- Updated April 25th, 2012, 4:01 pm to add the following --

Music is a language and has many parallels to be drawn with speech. Our emotional understanding of both is somewhat innate. Music stimulates emotion even without prior harmonic/rhythmic knowledge, just as tones of voice communicate emotion without needing prior knowledge of language. But our intellectual understanding of both is enhanced through prior knowledge and practice. Jazz musicians develop the ability to use and hear more complex harmony through increased aural and theoretical knowledge, just as great orators develop the ability to use and understand more complex language. What sounds determine what emotional reaction is a product of biological evolution, natural reactions to sound stimuli. Our over-developed intellect then uses this innate emotional response as a foundation to build both music and language vocabularies for further stimulus.

This is a description of music. It is not a definition of music (meaning, it describes the concept rather than dillineates it). This does not answer the question of "What is music?" Calling it a language is not sufficient, because it does not spell out how, as a language it is unique.

-- Updated April 25th, 2012, 4:04 pm to add the following --

It is used in expressing what you feel and saying opinion out loud without getting obvious.

This is too broad, and descriptive rather than definitive.

E.g., I could write a short story that used symbolism and imagry to make a subtle, ethical point. Is that music? I think not. That is literature. But it fits within your description.

-- Updated April 25th, 2012, 4:06 pm to add the following --

First of you have beat or rhythm. Then you might ask why do we move are bodies to this rhythm and why most animals will not? Then you have tones or notes. These can set a mood or idea of what we should be feeling.

Then we add poetry to the sound and rhythm or words, which create a story and mood of the story and what the person is feeling or trying to say. As words have impact based on how we translate them, just like how we translate tones and rhythm.

This is descriptive, not definitive, and is too narrow, as "A Poster He or I" has sufficiently pointed out.

-- Updated April 25th, 2012, 4:09 pm to add the following --

Weight said

"Music to me is a combination of sounds that induce certain feelings. Ideas expressed through sound. Music is a pattern, musicians are expert pattern creators, and story tellers. Certain rhythms can tell a story. Its all just math. What is your opinion on this wide subject."

What distinguishes this from say poetry.

imo music is sound that by-passes the rational part of our brain and feeds directly into those areas responsible for emotional response. No linguistic skills are required.

This is not false, but it is descriptive and not definitive. That it "induces certain feelings" is not central to what deifferentiates it from any other thing. That it can express an idea is not central to what differentiates it. That it can tell a story is not central. Math is involved in it, but it false to say that "it's all just math;" because it is not purely abstract; it has to interact with time sequence and frequency, which, strictly speaking is physics, and not math.

-- Updated April 25th, 2012, 4:11 pm to add the following --

Weight said

"Music to me is a combination of sounds that induce certain feelings. Ideas expressed through sound. Music is a pattern, musicians are expert pattern creators, and story tellers. Certain rhythms can tell a story. Its all just math. What is your opinion on this wide subject."

What distinguishes this from say poetry.

imo music is sound that by-passes the rational part of our brain and feeds directly into those areas responsible for emotional response. No linguistic skills are required.

Gareth, I see you were quoting Weight. My bad. I would only say that music does not necessarilly bypass the rational side of the brain (by which, I'm sure you mean, the "analytical" side), although it certainly can.

Weight: see above.

[Dreager]

Music it is artistical vision of sound... So the next question is:"What is art"?

You are correct. No one else here is even close.

Art is self-referencing experience; i.e., an experience designed to be experienced for its own sake.

Music is art within an audio medium. Thus, music is self-referencing audio experience.

You contradict yourself "no one else here is even close". A self-referencing experience is a subjective experience.

You seem to present an obvious description in unnecessarily complex language. From what I gather;

Music is art. We experience it through our sense of hearing. For it's own sake.

...I agree

[Prismatic]

Béla Bartók, the composer regarded as a founder of ethnomusicology, observed that the music of all cultures contains rhythm and melody. Harmony may be lacking or be present only in primitive forms, but every culture has some form of singing showing melody and some form of dancing showing rhythm. Music at its simplest then would include melody supported by rhythm—singing and dancing, flutes and drums, etc.

[Belinda]

Natural sound such as birdsong or thunderstorm has much in common with music, such as symmetry and asymmetry in beautiful proportion to each other. The difference between natural sounds and music proper is that music proper is human artefact. Human artefact is defined by the intention of the maker of it.