We've all experienced it in one form or another, but what are the bounds of it? Where do we say "That's not music, that's noise?"

The famous John Cage tested these boundaries in his Avant Garde activities. Can we really call his 4'33", which involves three movements of silence, 'music'?

Does music require pitch? rhythm? How much of each?

Then we may come to the question of what purpose music serves? Should it be merely aesthetic? In this case, there's no reason that punk rockers and their powerchords should be considered lesser music than the works of Motzart. In this case, the beauty of music is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

Maybe music can be an intellectual game. Maybe music can be about playing around with pitches, rhythms, finding relationships and new ways to exploit them...

What makes music special and why should we care?

What an interesting question.

I would go for "anything made with the intent of it being music".

Whether it's good or not is an entirely different matter.

Please refrain from using negative connotations to describe my favorite genre.

"Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise.
When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it,
we find it fascinating." - John Cage

This says it all, to me. Honestly, to make a comparison to the visual arts, we go into galleries to view creations made my human hands and we call it art...but step outside to watch a waterfall, clouds moving across the sky, trees moving with the wind, and suddenly we're not looking at art. I find this to be absurd, for nature itself is art, the purest art, and the foundation and primary inspiration for all the human arts. From that point, it could be said that art only exists in the human mind, completely removed from any sort of useless, constraining definitions. Take a picture of the waterfall, the clouds, the trees, and it becomes art. Draw them and it becomes art. Write about them and it becomes art. Compose symphonies to them and it becomes art. The minute human thought, effort, energy, and love touches on something in the world and absorbs it, channels it through their own perspective, it becomes art. Thus, clanging metal, car engines, volcanoes erupting, babies crying -- these things in and of themselves are not art, nor music, but they are tools to be appropriated by the human creative impulse, and it is when these things and passed through the lens of human creativity that they become music, art and so on.

Basically, once someone uses a sound in the aim of creating music, it is such. Once someone uses an object or an image towards the goal of creating art, it is art.

Duchamp tought us this nearly a hundred years ago. Art is what you make of it. You create your own world, your own meaning.



Sorry if that drags on, I haven't slept in a few days -- I may edit this post and come up with a coherent response sometime later.

You just said what I said in about 400 fewer words...I just cannot be concise!

I would agree with that. I'm personally sick of certain people turning around and simply saying "Argh, what's that NOISE?". Fair enough, of a tecnical level, yes, it's all noise - that's the whole point though? It offends me, espeically when these people usually stick to pop or rap, which to me is "just noise".

I listen to all sorts of things, Emo, Rock, Metal, Punk, Ska - even Black/Death metal and Hardcore - but that doesn't mean that's all I do listen too. I also love brass music, classical music and so on. I just don't understand why some people have to judge music so harshly.







But not Opra!!!! NEVER Opra

music is organized sound. Cage has showed us that.

I wouldn't even say that is has to be organized, really...for in reality, all there is to be found is sound itself. But MUSIC, that is something that only exists from the interaction between musician and listener. Without both elements, there is no music...it's not something tangable or measurable, but something that occurs in the mind, and that's where the magic happens.

music... is a word. i cant tell if this topic is about "how do i define what i listen to" or "what is a general all-encompassing definition for the word, taking into account all of its possible uses", but either way, im going to be making some drastic generalizations.


im not really happy with what i just said, but i think part of what makes something music is that the listener is listening, not just hearing. theres some sort of conscious effort involved. so i guess that makes music an indirect form of communication between the composer and the listener. but whats great is how individualized the interpretive process is. this is why i have a problem with cage and non-intention. he doesnt take into account all of the things that arent necessarily intended but are communicated through music's ambiguities. not at all to say that nothing good came out of john cage's work


ok! a bit off topic at the end, and ill probably be embarassed to have written that in ten minutes but hey, i have an excuse, im young and havent had time to think about this stuff

Best definition ever.

i don't mean to argue, but the musician has measured these qualities. even if you consider improvisational works. these are all in some way organized by the musician's ear or musicality and they depend on that to express themselves.

music can be made by anyone or anything, but it is still created within a boundary from which the musician creates. sure, there's an interaction between musician and listener, but what is happening during that interaction? there is a controlled atmosphere of sounds.