What is music

[liszt-essence]

What is music?

I don't know really. Music just touches me, it comes through and it activates my feelings. I sense it, with my ears, then like sex, it can go deeper, it can reach my heart and really move me. 

I always search for deeper meanings in music, while sometimes there is none.
Sometimes a song is just a song, a piece of piano music means nothing more than just a simply melody that sounds nice.

What I really want from music, when I CREATE music, is to bring out feelings that move around on my deepest inner planes.

As far as I can tell. It must come out, and it can come out in many ways.  Very deep sounds, I think of deep dark lakes in mysty settings in which many dynamic shapes take form and are in direct connection with my senses.
But I feel light as well. Sometimes I think there is not enough potential in a piano to bring all of this stuff out. Maybe I should find a violin to define my own tone?
But none of that matters, as bascily there is so much to explore.

I don't question myself enough what a piece means to me? What is real and not?

Surely, a difficult piece becomes rewarding because of the sheer amount of energy put into it, and the succes aftwards after all those hours of practice. But why did I learn it in the first place? Because it sounded awesome and I wanted to be able to play it.

Ofcourse.. but when my technique would be perfect, and no one would be listening then What would I play. After how many years would I get bored by those pieces?

When does music become critical, when does it demonstrate the deep sense of being alive, of being part of something bigger? Something that lacks in my understanding most of the time? When does it become real in the sense of real true experience that really stir my feelings and my being on a very deep and real level ?

Scriabin said "In love's godlike breathing, is the inner most aspect of the universe"

Did he bring out this understanding, this experience, this feeling in his music? Was he able to? Am I able to?

I think so. I think we all are. But yet I have to find my way into the depths of the piano itself and also dive in the depths of my own soul to become one with the piano.. and create music together. From the core of who I am? If I even know, who that might be

[leucippus]

Maybe I should find a violin to define my own tone?

After hearing what you have to say about what music means to you I would definitely recommend a violin.

Pianists can argue with this until they are blue in the fact, but the fact of the matter is that a violin is a much more personal instrument. It's more personal in the way that you caress it an hold it on your shoulder.  You lay your chin and cheek intimately against it.  The sounds you produce from it are very intimately entangled with your existence much more so than a piano could ever hope to be. 

I play both, the piano and violin.  The violin is without a doubt the more personal instrument.

I wouldn't give up the piano though.  No reason at all why you can't play both instruments.   

As far as knowing who you are.  That's totally unimportant.   You will never know who you are.  It's much better to just embrace what you are and by doing so you'll ultimately know who you are.  (i.e. you are that which you embrace)

Being what you are is more important than knowing what you are.  Avoid becoming analytical if at all possible.

[lostinidlewonder]

Music is compression of air, but it can also exist within our heads. Music is a universal language, one which everyone understands without ever studying it. You can understand any dialect of music if you are ready and willing to listen to it. God gave us speech to try and describe our emotions, he also gave us music to help express this sometimes inexpressible force within us. Music is like a pressure release valve, it can instantly remove stress and help mend a painful heart.

[pianistimo]

the ancient three chords of the lyre were attributed the same attention as the three muses that were thought originally to inspire memory, song, and whatever else there was.  i remember seeing an early piano teaching magazine with perhaps six muses on them - and it seemed that they included science with the arts.  it was not a separate thing of relative unimportance to the greeks or romans.  also, they believed in excelling at music just as much as any other subject - if i remember right.  perhaps the romans slightly de-valued music as much as sciences - but the greeks tended to equalize it all.

of course, being a Christian, i only see a sort of symbolism from these past 'figures' that represent what are not actually concrete muses - but godlike representations of the different sciences and arts and how they were imagined and probably ARE tied together mysteriously and to Christians religiously.  i see music as another language and just as scientific as any other science.  perhaps where i draw the line - is to allow others to manipulate my emotions more or less than i want them to be.  so, i define my own limitations or how far i want my emotions to travel at any given moment (even while performing).  i don't think this is being UN emotional - but simply planning - as when people read poetry or a story or ballade - they practice emphasizing certain words or sections and make certain points of interest their own particular 'version' of the story. 

i find ancient music particularly interesting because of the strong connections to the lyre and harp.  the harp has such a pleasing and interesting potential.  and, basically, the piano is a large harp - but the hammers are striking the keys instead of them being plucked.  the potential for bringing out emotions from chords of varying sounds from diminished to minor to major to augmented - etc. and their varying combinations together make for an interesting psychological test.  do all people feel basically the same types of emotions from certain classical pieces - or are the reactions all very different?

i would be interested to study this - just as temperament/key definitions were worked out in ancient times.  perhaps there is a common denominator throughout the ages of certain sounds and certain emotions.  and, perhaps a certain amount is programmed by environment.  certainly a large part of music deals with emotion.  after all, it is used in 'music therapy.'  and, has been known to regulate heart rhythms, bring anxiety or produce calmness, and various circulatory and breathing responses. 

i've never been so critically oriented when playing though.  usually when i play - i am thinking of specific things that the music makes me, personally, feel.  (this is something i had to work on and am still working on).  i would not want to waste my time explaining my personal versions - but rather express this by playing.  sometimes what you are thinking comes out as a totally different interpretation than you intended - and yet valid to the listener.  i like validation, but i don't depend on it.  if i feel that i expressed my personal feelings about the music and what the composer may have intended - then i am not really worried during the performance or after if i pleased every single person in the audience.  to me, this releases me from a tremendous burden.  i might add that it was only in the past several years that i tried to unlock a bit more of the 'pandoras box' of emotion - of which many emotions were kept sort of locked up more carefully.  i'm realizing that playing music is somewhat like acting - and if you don't over-exaggerate in certain spots - the general audience is not likely to catch the drift.  the thing is - that i hate overexaggeration when i hear it.  so , it is a fine balance of knowing exactly what the audience is hearing.  sometimes when you are close to the piano (as with directly playing) you hear one thing - and when you are in the back row - you hear another.

i enjoyed the clip of horowitz's 'take' on scriabin very much!  thanks for enlightening us as to what music means to us.  sometimes we don't take the time to really express it in words.  to me, the highest form of music is song.  words with music.  and if they are expressing something beautiful such as love or worship (esp. of God) then i feel inspired.  feeling inspired is like being transported to another place.  one where you hear every tiny sound.  just as horowitz carefully voices and gives precise dynamics that he is thinking in his head - and makes it a reality - so it gives the music more depth and meaning because of the precision of the craftsman/woman.

[ted]

I shan't even bother attempting a general definition; that is far beyond my capability. For me it is an activity involving highly organised sound, which produces certain enjoyable effects in my brain, and which I therefore cultivate and repeat. I could also describe it as a highly developed and disciplined personal yoga which unfailingly transports me into what the mystics call the eternal present, the clear light, individuation, suchness, oneness and so on.

I think these descriptions say the same thing, describe the same process, and vary only in choice of vocabulary. Sometimes I am prosaic and sometimes mystical; it depends on what I have had for breakfast, so to speak.

[jas]

After hearing what you have to say about what music means to you I would definitely recommend a violin.

Pianists can argue with this until they are blue in the fact, but the fact of the matter is that a violin is a much more personal instrument. It's more personal in the way that you caress it an hold it on your shoulder.  You lay your chin and cheek intimately against it.  The sounds you produce from it are very intimately entangled with your existence much more so than a piano could ever hope to be.

Oh, I totally agree. I'd love to play the violin. Or he could get a clavichord if keyboard instruments are his thing.

As for what is music, I was having this discussion with someone at my work not long ago. He is a big lover of modern music, whereas as I'm not so much, so his ideas of what music is are quite different to my own. He said that anything that we want can be music; birdsong, for example. Or a load of scattered and unrelated pitches. And that music doesn't have to have a melody, a key, a structure or even musical instruments.

But I'm not happy with that. I think that if anything can be music, it negates the concept of music at all. Then what have I been studying for the past eight years? I'm a traditionalist when it comes to this. I do think there's a point when something can't be called music at all, but I think there's not so much a line between them as a fade from one to the other.

[henrah]

To me, music is an expression. I think that even if you went deep into the minds of those that compose music that just sounds nice or has a nice melody to it, and only compose it for those reasons, that you will find some meaning or feeling tied in with that composition. Even if you don't mean to, you can compose something out of feeling one thing.

[prometheus]

It is sound organised in terms of melody, harmony and rhythm.

You linked to Vers La Flamme. I think that is a very conservative example of what music can be.

[mephisto]

You linked to Vers La Flamme. I think that is a very conservative example of what music can be.

Why?

[prometheus]

It's straightforward organisation of music. I mean, people have made pieces that are organised in a different way or aren't organised at all. I don't see a difference between Bach or Mozart and Scriabin in that respect. They were doing the exact same thing.

[Derek]

On the other hand, and this is a favorite topic of mine, can completely random and disorganized sound be called music?  Or can total silence (or presence of faint ambient noise) be called music?

I believe that an objective answer to these questions is: "no."    Those things may be called musicAL, in that they may at times resemble music, but they cannot be called music.  To do so would be to assign additional meanings to a word which already describes something specific:  "Sound organized by the human mind for the consumption of the human mind for the purpose of pleasing the human mind."   


BTW---I'd never heard vers la flamme before.  I like parts of it but I wish Scriabin didn't over do that trill figuration, it really got terribly irritating after a while!

[mephisto]

You may change your oppinipn about the piece later. At least I did.

[liszt-essence]

Many different perspectives on music, yet all share something in common.

To some it maybe logic, like mathematics are logic. To others it's pure emotion. To others, its a combination. etc..

I think music is one of the highest arts there is and I'm sure most of you will agree with me on that. It's so complex, so wide there are so many possibilites. It is so interwoven with human existence, It speaks to our imagination, it can do so many thing with us.

The fact that all of us differ somewhat in our perceptions and perspectives tells me something about, us, about music. About how it all comes together. As one.
I think it's wonderful.

Thank you all for replying, seriously, it means a lot to me when people speak their hearts and share a personal intimate view on something like this. Thank you.

[Derek]

You may change your oppinipn about the piece later. At least I did.

I really love the piece, its just that one trill is overdone. The textures, motifs, harmonies, etc. are all MAREVELLOUS...but ...arGH!   too many trills hahaha

[andyd]

"expression in sound"

A

[counterpoint]

Music is a special sort of language, which can narrate about experiences, which are beyond words and beyond the material world.

[Derek]

I am glad to see there are no postmodern airheads around here touting the idea that absolute silence or random noise can be music.  Actually---I wish there were because I love crushing such people with my irrefutable logic.

[mephisto]

Hm, music is sound. This is not something I have thought a lot about, so I am very much open for other wiews.

[counterpoint]

Hm, music is sound.

Okay, in the same way you can say

cinema is light

[lisztisforkids]

I dont think about what music is as much as why is there music.

[pianistimo]

music is an anagram for 'sicum.'

a new book that looks interesting:  'this is your brain on music'

[pianowolfi]

For me music is the essence of spirituality.

[pianolist]

For a pianolist, one of music's aspects is holes in paper. I keep a few jars of the little pieces of paper that the roll perforating machine has punched out. They are visible silences.

[ramseytheii]

Dear Mr. Schoenberg,
Will you please give me your definition of music - not just your appreciation of music-making nor your reactions to it, but what music means to you?
---
Dear Mr. Koons:
Music is a simultaneous and a succesive-ness of tones and tone-combinations, which are so organized that its [sic] impression on the ear is comprehensible, and that these impressions have the power to influence occult parts of our soul and of our sentimental spheres and that this influence makes us live in a dreamland of fulfilled desires, or in a dreamed hell of... etc... etc...
What is water?
H2O, and we can drink it; and can wash by it; and it is transparent; and has no Colour; and we can use it to swim and to ship; and it drives mills, etc... etc...
I know a nice and touching story:
A blind man asked his guide, "How looks milk?"
The Guide answered, "Milk looks white."
The Bland Man: "What's that 'white'?  Mention a thing which is white!"
Guide: "A swan.  It is perfect white, and it has a long white and bent neck."
Blind Man: "A bent neck?  What is that?"
The Guide, imitating with his arm the form of a swan's neck, lets the blind man feel the form of his arm.
The Blind Man, flowing softly with his hand along the arm of the guide: "Now I know how looks milk!"

Yours Sincerely,
Arnold Schoenberg
----
Walter Ramsey

[pianistimo]

good thing that guide wasn't involved with helen keller.  i think her guide would have taken her straight to the cow.

[ramseytheii]

good thing that guide wasn't involved with helen keller.  i think her guide would have taken her straight to the cow.

You've got 7 more to go.   Don't forget to include my name in #6000!

Walter Ramsey

[invictious]

Music is a safe type of high.

Music is a safe type of hallucinogen, stimulator and depressant.

[ramseytheii]

Music is a safe type of high.

Music is a safe type of hallucinogen, stimulator and depressant.

But if music was safe, it wouldn't be among the first things controlled in a fascist state!  And there would be no Dyonisius.

Walter Ramsey

[semme]

the violin may be the instrument being closer connected to ones soul... whatever. but the biggest disadvantage i think is, that you cant play or control (in a group) the polyphonic textures which really give music drama, passion and a soul. without those, its just a nice melody, like an air filled baloon with "nothing" in it. thats also why everybody dislikes your whistling, not only because of your underdeveloped skill to create a nice sound, but more because there is no polyphonic structure exept in your brain. its a skeleton, ready to collapse.

piano for the win! 

[m1469]

What is music?

It depends on the context, and I believe it is the context which is perhaps most difficult for people to agree on.  However, I do not think it needs to be agreed on between people in order for something to still be music.


m1469