How do you define what music is?

[JK]

I was thinking about what makes one thing music and another thing not music, what is it that enables us to say that something is music? Music cannot be defined as something that must have melody as there is plenty of music without melody, what about harmony, does music need harmony, well i guess it does as whether music is tonal or a-tonal it has some system of harmony. Does this therefore mean that if you had two organs playing two notes a major third apart ad infinitum it would be classified as music, after all it has harmony? well maybe not, therefore music has to have a sense of structure or a sense of cohesiveness and unification, this could be through the development of motifs and themes or the repetition of an ostinato or pattern, such as in minnimilism. What about rhythm? does music have to have rhythm, well I guess it does as without it the music doesn't make sense. So that must be another thing, music has to make some sort of sense, it has to be understood. So music could be defined as something which has harmony, structure, rhythm and a sense of understanding ie. a sense of logic behind its composition. So if we were to use this criteria then that would exclude cages 4:33 and other such experimental pieces, i'm not so sure that this is the correct way to define music then. Is music simply a collection of organised sounds or something? What I'm trying to get at is that I don't know, what does everyone else think, how do you define what you think of as music?

[m1469]

I personally believe that music is ultimately undefinable to "our" thought.  Once you wrap your head around something, no matter how large the concept and degree of difficulty in acheiving it, a bigger picture appears making the last as a speck of dust.  However, I believe the best practical definition in relation to such big matters would be how it all pans out in one's life.  What qualities can you better yourself with?  What aspects of yourself can you better motivate? etc..

Have you ever seen a dot drawing?  From a distance it may look like a face, but the closer you get the more distorted the face becomes because you become fixated on the details which are only dots in varied layers and organizations.  Any one chunk looked at by itself will not be the whole nor look like the whole, however, it is somehow just as representational as all the rest.

I think along these lines with music as well.  No one part can be taken by itself, no matter how small or large, and defined as the whole.  The whole is something that I believe can only be felt within, governing, or atleast pervading every detail of all of one's endeavors.

m1469 Fox

[Daevren]

"Music
(MYOO-zik)


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Any rhythmic, melodic, or harmonic grouping of sounds that is specifically composed and that forms a unity so as to convey a message, to communicate, or to entertain."

I believe that rhythmic, melodic and harmonic grouping of sound is enough.

[Bob]

It's not quite definable.

Music may have something to do with organizatino of sounds.  It has something to do with being alive and being human.  It has something to do with the way people interprete the sounds they hear.

[jeff]

you see, you want to define this word: "music". this word (like any other word) is a human creation - a label for something. the 'something' (like most things) which this word labels is not a single, concrete, unchanging thing. Perhaps you are just looking for the answer to this question: "when people started to use the word 'music' (or any equivalent word in other languages), what were these people originally labelling?" that's a fair enough question. perhaps the answer would be something like 'the organisation of abstract sonic elements (pitch, rhythm, harmony) into a work of sound-art'. i think one interesting question (for me, more interesting than "what is music?") that could follow on from here is: what originally motivated and what still motivates people to make "music"?

music, and the meaning of the word "music", have been changing, being redefined. "what music is" has been changing, simply because people have made it so.

also, the universe just doesn't work by being "defined" by words. that's not what reality is. a lot of people seem to try to or want to make it so, though 

[jeff]

It's not quite definable.

Music may have something to do with organizatino of sounds.  It has something to do with being alive and being human.  It has something to do with the way people interprete the sounds they hear.

hm.. nice little post

[Bob]

Gimme a break.  I was just typing that in passing, very quickly.  It's this kind of posting that leads to negativity on the forum and lowers the quality of the forum.  Just ask what I meant.  Ask for more clarification.

"May have something to do with organizaton of sounds" -- Or not.  A person could hear music in randon environmental sounds.  Unorganized noise.  Or, maybe the mind of that person hears some organization and logic to those random noises.  So, "it has to do with how people interpret what the sounds they hear."  It may depend on who organizes those sounds -- does it have to be created by a person?

"Being alive and being human" -- I was thinking music was just something for humans, but birds seem to use their own type of singing pretty well.  I imagine their chirps are their own kind of music or communication.  So maybe "music" isn't limited to humans.  For that matter, maybe other species have their own kind of music that communicates or is expressive to them and not us.

"It has to do with how people interpret what the sounds they hear" -- It's also possible someone has a definite idea of what they consider "music."  If they don't hear a steady beat, or tonality, or it's not expressive, then it's not music to them.  That kind of person wouldn't consider the rhythm of a passing train to be music.

[jeff]

hm.. nice little post

Gimme a break.  I was just typing that in passing, very quickly.  It's this kind of posting that leads to negativity on the forum and lowers the quality of the forum.  Just ask what I meant.  Ask for more clarification.

oops! sorry if i sounded sarcastic - i really was being sincere, i did like that little post and thought it was adequately long 

maybe i should use more smilies or something?