Defining and Organizing What We Call Music

Mr November · 04-27-2011, 11:59 PM

I wanted to ask you all what you thought about a few things. A bunch of questions that really fall under the dilemma of how we think about music in a broader sense, and how that effects the industry, society, and our own ability to experience new forms of music.

I) So my first question is what is music? Does it have to be produced by a human? Would you consider a birds song music? Whale music? Wind chimes? The Ocean? Is music simply sound? Or does it have to be an art form, with a message or a concept?

II) Music can cover a lot of different sounds, it can exist in many different lengths, volumes, tones, etc.

Personally I don't like genres for music, and I tend to compare artists to other well known bench marks rather than label them. But we all use genre's and labels to try and identify music in the endless ocean of other bands, songs, and sounds...

What do these genres mean? Like what does rock really mean? What does indie mean? What does pop mean? Are they actually saying anything or is it just something left over from those many decades when music started to branch off into one million different kinds of imitation, experimentation, and combination? I mean, classical music has genres based on certain times in history that can tell you a lot about what a given piece will sound like - this is because composers would always write by a certain set of rules, and you sort of new what to expect.

So what do genres mean? How do we use them? How should we use them/should we at all? And what's the future of this whole concept. Are we just going to get where the point where there will be so many different sounds and concepts that there would be too many genres to remember (and I'm all for that).

III) Last question: Why do we like music? Is it just the patterns? What makes some music better to us than other music, and is music better the more complex it is, or is that complexity deeper than the sounds being produced and more about the emotions that are created by it. Is difficult music better... etc, etc. ???

So that's it. Take a shot at these questions if you want.

04-27-2011, 11:59 PM	#1 (permalink)
Mr November Music Addict Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Halifax, Canada Posts: 429	Defining and Organizing What We Call Music I wanted to ask you all what you thought about a few things. A bunch of questions that really fall under the dilemma of how we think about music in a broader sense, and how that effects the industry, society, and our own ability to experience new forms of music. I) So my first question is what is music? Does it have to be produced by a human? Would you consider a birds song music? Whale music? Wind chimes? The Ocean? Is music simply sound? Or does it have to be an art form, with a message or a concept? II) Music can cover a lot of different sounds, it can exist in many different lengths, volumes, tones, etc. Personally I don't like genres for music, and I tend to compare artists to other well known bench marks rather than label them. But we all use genre's and labels to try and identify music in the endless ocean of other bands, songs, and sounds... What do these genres mean? Like what does rock really mean? What does indie mean? What does pop mean? Are they actually saying anything or is it just something left over from those many decades when music started to branch off into one million different kinds of imitation, experimentation, and combination? I mean, classical music has genres based on certain times in history that can tell you a lot about what a given piece will sound like - this is because composers would always write by a certain set of rules, and you sort of new what to expect. So what do genres mean? How do we use them? How should we use them/should we at all? And what's the future of this whole concept. Are we just going to get where the point where there will be so many different sounds and concepts that there would be too many genres to remember (and I'm all for that). III) Last question: Why do we like music? Is it just the patterns? What makes some music better to us than other music, and is music better the more complex it is, or is that complexity deeper than the sounds being produced and more about the emotions that are created by it. Is difficult music better... etc, etc. ??? So that's it. Take a shot at these questions if you want.