For you, at what point is music no long music?
Asked by
Arp (
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)
September 10th, 2010
Some people think birds chirping is music. Some people think torturing nurse is music. There are even people FUCKED UP enough to think that THIS is music!!!
So, I wanted to know, where do you guys draw the line? I have met some who can’t even tolerate electric guitars and prefer classical music (bach doesn’t count, he played heavy metal with an organ).
I personally like a wide variety, but I draw my line at the above torturing nurse song. Everything after that couldn’t possibly be considered music! Right?
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45 Answers
When it brings on feelings of rage ;)
@lucillelucillelucille Major disagree there….rage is a feeling…an emotion and music is every bit of feelings and emotions. I ask have you never turned up the volume on the stereo in a fit of frustration and even pounded your fist a few times??? Perhaps you were even simply pissed at the stereo and wanted to throw that out the window?? Rage is a part of music albeit the black sheep of the music family to some but rage has created some lasting and memorable songs and even bands. ;)
@Cruiser I agree almost entirely, but a few things:
1. Bands that mindlessly make songs about death and destruction usually aren’t actually putting rage into their music. They are just yelling real loud.
2. Music doesn’t NEED to have feeling. Industrial music, for example, is occasionally devoid of feeling and yet still musical. Feeling is only one of the things that can be expressed through music.
@Cruiser -You have risked my rage by disagreeing ;)
I don’t like to be rageful besides…I’m all growed up now smirks ;0
I am not really qualified nor do I choose to decide or determine what is music or what is not music. I just decide what’s crap and what isn’t crap. No, just kidding. I just decide what music I want to listen to or what music I like or find interesting and what music I can do without, thank you very much.
@Arp Tell that to Elvis whose hip thrusting and lustful lyrics enraged an entire parental unit in the 50’s…who are we to judge what is musically correct?
@lucillelucillelucille…I think you are letting me off the hook way too easy there as I still detect a smidgen of rage! ;)
@Cruiser-If you were Robert Plant and Led Zep,you would feel my rage.That band has done more than any other to bring on cranked moods from me.It’s not music to me,it’s irritation,Does that explain it better? ;)throws Houses of the Holy at him
<<Ducks>> @lucillelucillelucille You can take the Stairway to Heaven and stomp, scream and wave your hands all you want and yes that is not music unless of course you are playing a kazoo then you have a huge hit on your hands and that is how it is done!! Almost too easy!
@Cruiser-I do play the kazoo and do a good rendition of Hotdog: off of In Through the Out Door-the only album of theirs I like because it doesn’t sound as much like them XD
Drop kicks all the Willie Dixon songs they stole and ruined!
—They’re almost as bad as your golf game—XD
@lucillelucillelucille You simply seem to be harboring a bit too much anger, frustration and rage over a band from the 1970’s…time to let go already….Take a deep breath and repeat after me….Guuuusfrabaaa
@lucillelucillelucille Do I detect an audition for Dancing with the Stars in your future?? I will be more than happy to teach you all those nearly impossible moves…be in my studio at 6 am and be prepared to perform this no slip-ups/mistakes or I will not be able to tutor you! XD
Well if you get me liquored up enough, I would wear that and maybe even sing for you!! Perhaps you know the words?
When the singers start screaming, the radio goes off.
@Fly So you don’t thinking screaming can be beautiful?
On long car rides, I would tell my kids if they misbehaved I would play my Yoko Ono tape. They would immediately quiet down.
One thing that bothers me is when people call music they don’t like “not music”. For me, anything that arranges tones (not just sounds in other words) is music. No matter how bad I think it is. So while John Cage’s “4’33” is an interesting experiment, it’s not music to me. Otherwise, all that horrible death metal and screamo music that I hate is still music; I just don’t like it.
When it’s a Jingle or just plain crap.
Hahaha lol. What a crack up. This question. Good though. Nickelback sucks, haha. I have my three wiseman when it comes to music, Frank Zappa, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie. But I like all kinds. It’s like this, somewhere there is a song that doesn’t stop, be it heaven etc, and some people here this song more than others. It’s where all good music comes from, the more they hear this song, the more original their music. Originality is a deciding factor in rating music. Because even if you don’t really like it, if it has enough originality, you got to give it proper credit.
I think that all music must have notes (do, re, mi, etc). Rock and roll is music, for example, because I can put the tune down as a series of notes. Never mind whether or not the song actually sounds good when played. What is important is that the song has musical notes.
Drumbeats by themselves are not music. Rather, they are rhythm. An exception is if the drumbeats also create musical notes (e.g. steel drums).
Chanting is music if it follows musical notes. It is not if it is simply a series of spoken or shouted words.
I think where you draw the line is when it’s “monotonous and non-increasing” which is a friend of mines, definition of hell.
Without reading the above answers…
Music blends into becoming noise collage. For this thick and bizarre line, I look to Negativland.
They’ll range from this to this to this to a song called, Helter Stupid, which I can’t for the life of me find anywhere.
The screamo sutff and the viral internet videos like this one.
Goddamn, stupid frog.
@DominicX I honestly don’t see a difference between tone and sound. Tone is just a way that humans organize sound :3
@weeveeship Ahh, but do-re-me is only one kind of music; I can think of two variations:
1. Microtonal music. Music that isn’t linked to the same “A A# B C C#” type of chromatic that our western music is linked to. I know a lot of eastern music used microtonal intervals, and when foreign explorers from the west came to some Asian countries, they could barely take it, because their ears were not conditioned to enjoy those type of intervals. This is a good example of the idea that music is in the ‘ear’ of the beholder: music was different for these people than it was for them, so they heard it “differently” then people who had listened to it their entire life.
2. Noise music. The torturing nurse song in the original question is just one example of a genre known as harsh noise. It lacks a time signature, “notes”, scales, melody, and phrases, and yet some freaks like me still consider it music. Well, why is that? I think music is when you can find beauty, enjoyment, or feeling in a sound, whatever that sound really is. The sound of a cough to me could be musical, as long as it was a sound I could listen to to create activity in my mind. Just because it isn’t a 4/4, Chorus-Bridge-Verse, Foot-tapping song in which the singer blabs about love and breakups doesn’t mean it isn’t music. As long as someone out there enjoys or feels a sound, then the musician has successfully created music.
@Arp What I was going for is a more objective definition of music. For instance, one common definition given here is “Music is music if I like it.” That works, except that maybe to me Kanye West is music and maybe to you it’s not.
About your point
1. True. However, these songs still use notes, albeit on a different scale. You can still replicate the song on an instrument, something you can’t really do for spoken phrases.
2. Since noise music does not have notes of any sort, I would not consider that music. My definition only considers notes, not any other parts of music theory, so I would consider even certain heavy metal or death metal songs as music if they have notes. The foot-tapping song could be music if it has notes and not just a series of spoken “I love you…”
Ultimately, each person would have their own definition of music, though.
@weeveeship Mostly agreed, but on your first point, does sound need instruments to be music? Aren’t instruments just used as musical extensions of the body?
@Arp
A tone is a note like A or D or even a quarter tone (as used in Arab and Indian music). It’s a type of sound. For example, cymbals clashing is a sound that has no tone.
@Arp Sound does not need instruments to be music as you can produce music in other ways such a voice. Rather, instruments are a way you can test if something has notes or not. For example, you cannot replicate spoken language with notes on any instrument.
For me, if there is no tune, or at least a pattern of differentiated notes, I can’t call it music. Rap, for instance. It’s poetry, sometimes it’s good poetry, but it’s not musical in any way, to me (although there might be a musical backing track, if it’s more than just a drum machine).
@DominicX Tone is simply the frequency (or speed) of the wave, and more completely, the speed of the vibrations in the air. So, even the cymbal has a tone, though either a very high one, a very low one, or, most likely, several tones or one heavily fluctuating one. Though it is hard to directly link a percussive sound to a musical “note”, they are all consisting of different frequencies that make up a tone. (if you don’t believe me, try hitting a cymbal and then using that sample’s loop very quickly, and you will hear a “note”)
@weeveeship That just means it is not possible under the abilities of the instrument. However, there are some instruments, such as voice synths, that can musically replicate formants, which are the building blocks of speech (Vocaloid is a great example!)
@Arp
A percussive instrument like a cymbal does not have a “definite pitch”. It has many high frequencies occurring simultaneously. You asked us to provide our own definition of music and in my definition of music, sounds that do not have a definite pitch do not constitute “music” alone.
@DominicX Chords don’t have a definite pitch: They have 3 or more!
@Arp
So? A chord is an arrangement of definite pitches. A cymbal is not. You can not point out definite pitches within the sound of a cymbal crashing. (Not without hi-tech analysis, at least).
@DominicX High tech analysis ftw! Everyone knows music is made for robots, right? :P
If it is excruciatingly out of tune, it doesn’t feel like music anymore, but the line is very fine. If one wishes to think of it that way, nearly anything can be considered music: after all, the truck may beep an F# and the car horn may be a G, even if most people don’t realize it.
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