What exactly makes music music?

[enriquetnt]

Inner Universe is still my favorite song of all time, japanese composer, russian opera singer, and a ben del maestro, you can not go wrong whit all that talent put together.

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

So you think if you aren't studying a science you can't learn more about a subject through studying it? you can surely learn techniques to deconstruct the art form and become informed on how to critique the process and end result, learning to avoid the mistakes others have made? surely!?

That's fine if you want to be a critic... "even the most mediocre of art is more meaningful than its critique" (Ratatouille)

It's very safe to sit there and read books for a few years then delude yourself by thinking your opinion is the better than other peoples because of it, too bad books don't reveal trade secrets or anything of any importance to making a living from art =P (after all, why would any professional help their competition?)

I don't quite get what you're saying here - are you implying that it's impossible for one person to formulate a more informed opinion on a matter like this, despite them having studied it in far more depth than the average person ever will for several years?

Well, thanks brah! You just saved me a fucktonne of university fees!

OT: I would define Dubstep as music, just as I would define Hip-Hop as music (God does it rile me when people on here jump on their high horses), and just as I would define Classical Music.

Just because they don't adhere to the rules (perhaps even guidelines) of a different form of music - and just because you perhaps don't feel in your 'comfort zone' while listening to them - doesn't mean that they aren't music.

It's really been the same throughout history. Many works that are considered works of genius now were looked at in shock ~200 years ago, for example Liszt's Sonata in B Minor, or Chopin's Sonata No. 2 - perhaps better known today as the funeral march.

 

[Tipsy Giant]

So you think if you aren't studying a science you can't learn more about a subject through studying it? you can surely learn techniques to deconstruct the art form and become informed on how to critique the process and end result, learning to avoid the mistakes others have made? surely!?

That's fine if you want to be a critic... "even the most mediocre of art is more meaningful than its critique" (Ratatouille)

It's very safe to sit there and read books for a few years then delude yourself by thinking your opinion is the better than other peoples because of it, too bad books don't reveal trade secrets or anything of any importance to making a living from art =P (after all, why would any professional help their competition?)

Art is not about making a living from it, look at Van Gogh, didn't sell a painting while he was alive. Professional artists ONLY want to help their fellow artists as they aren't competition, because no two people will make the same art, real artists want to hear everyone expressing themselves, that's the point. If you are making music to be rich, you've missed the point.

I don't think my opinion is better than anyone else's, after all it's still only an opinion, But I do consider myself to be better informed due to my studies, being able to critique something doesn't mean you want to be a critic, it just means you are aware of the trappings of the medium, you would assume someone who went to uni to study film would know of the cliches and try to avoid them and they would learn about good pacing and try to utilise it.

 

[dnnydllr]

snip

He is neither an idiot or a liar, so it's more likely that there are many definitions as to what constitutes music, some of which are admittedly more esoteric than others. John Cage's definition of music was so broad that any noise could be considered music. This doesn't fit with Tipsy Giant's definition, but it doesn't mean that he is an idiot or a liar. Calm your shit down.

Captcha: you good?

You good, bro?

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

To me music is something that takes some skill to play, a guitar, a drum set, piano or whatever.

Dubstep and anything created on computer, like dance are not music to me. There was a game called "music" and "music 2001" (I think), on those games you could make stuff equal to dubstep and dance music ... if a below average intelligent child with no musical training can do it, it's not music.

Would you say that a group of untrained people singing together (like traditional music in a village or whatever) isn't music?

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Music is any symphonic sound you enjoy listening to.


It doesn't even need to be made by a band. LS9 V8s make music, for example, and anyone who argues that Skrillex sounds better than a header-dumped LS9 has no testicles.

Listen to this and then realise it is a good example of functioning music then tell me what you think of Dubstep.

Still think dubstep is crap. Anything that sounds like failing A/V equipment is bad IMO, and I've heard some 'good' wubwubwub coming from sound cards that were literally on fire.

The point was if it makes musical sense and was written with good composition in mind it is still music opinions aside. Personally, Dubstep grates on my ears and I do not like it but I still have to accept some of it is music. I'd also like to launch that Gerald Barry piece into space and it cannot be unheard after having to study it for a year. Even at that just because something qualifies as music does not make it good music.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Inner Universe is still my favorite song of all time, japanese composer, russian opera singer, and a ben del maestro, you can not go wrong whit all that talent put together.

Agreed, it's a great track and really fits the setting of Ghost in the Shell.

 

[LITE992]

So I've heard many opinions of opinions on dubstep that range from calling it crapstep to Wendy's as a franchise saying it sounds like a broken Frosty machine. It's largely considered music in the US, but people don't think so. So what exactly does it take for something to be considered music?

I dont know music theory

but dubstep is music...no matter what some elitists think (while wanking off to their precious rock music)

yeah...as you can tell music elitism pisses me off to no end

in other words calling somthing "not music" is another way of saying "I think its crap"

liek I said you'd have to aks somone who is familiar with music theory..the rest are jsut idiots who dont know what their talking about

I've studied music theory for a couple years now, so I can hopefully put those questions to rest. It is a little difficult to understand what really makes music music from a theory point of view, but I've figured it out.

Basically you need to have 3 things:

Melody - This is the lead sound, usually in the form of vocals or lead guitar. In a guitar solo, it is a guitar, and so on for other instruments.

Harmony - Basically it's combinations of notes (called chords) that sound pleasing. Rhythmn guitar usually provides harmony by playing chords. Only stringed instruments can play multiple notes at once. For other instruments to play chords, you need multiple instruments.

Rhythmn - The beat, most commonly in the form of percussion. Any instrument can be part of the rhythmn, although the most common instruments are drums and bass.

I used to be a music elitist, but then I took an arrow in the knee but then I learned how music is constructed and had to admit that even rap is music.

 

[Something Amyss]

I dont know music theory

Which means nothing. Take it from someone who knows music theory, it doesn't address this in any sense that you mean.

Please don't misuse the term or link it with elitism (as you are about to do).

but dubstep is music...no matter what some elitists think (while wanking off to their precious rock music)

Of course, "elitism" is only a requisite for this belief if you use the GOP definition of "people who disagree with me." It's kind of ironic, because I'm pretty sure you'd find more of this from the low-brow common man, as opposed to the educated theory guy. Since, you know, dubstep can be deconstructed as any music and can analysed with theory if one so chooses.

That said, I think it's shit. And while it is technically music, shit is technically food in the sense that you can eat it, too.

yeah...as you can tell music elitism pisses me off to no end

Even where it doesn't exist lololololol!

...Yeah, finished that thought.

in other words calling somthing "not music" is another way of saying "I think its crap"

Not always, but you haven't been using words and phrases according to actual meaning so far, so why start now.

[/quote]liek I said you'd have to aks somone who is familiar with music theory..the rest are jsut idiots who dont know what their talking about[/quote]

Putting stock in music theory like that warms the cockles of my heart, but it reeks of the guys I knew who had one year of theory and thought they were the end-all of music. Theory doesn't impart some specific, mystical knowledge on you. It does not make you the elite in any sense other than "I'm actually fucking educated on something," which in art neither makes you accomplished or worth listening to in and of itself.

At best, AT BEST, it is a tool that will allow you to persuasively argue a point, because you have the tools to deconstruct the music. But that's a best case scenario. Even psycho-acoustic theory doesn't really tell you why something sounds good. It explains, and I am being very brief and simplistic here, that the human mind likes certain tones, intervals and progressions better than others. But it can't really tap in to why. That's like asking "what is art?" And it's a bad question to ask. In part because there is no real answer and in part because any answer you get is likely to be wrong.

Thing is, those "idiots" who "don't know what they're talking about" aren't really more or less correct. Except in the case of the perception of elitism, where us theory folks are up in our ivory towers, scoffing at the naive plebeian peasants beneath us...In which case, you're probably not going to find a viable support for dubstep, anyway.

Theory does, intrinsically, carry some definitions. But none of them are so exclusive that you probably couldn't come up with them yourself. They just formalise terms that people use to describe music already. In fact, it's not much different from what you could pull off Wikipedia:

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture. The word derives from Greek μουσική (mousike; "art of the Muses").[1]

Now, it's not a complete or comprehensive look into what's what, but ask yourself: Does dubstep have these elements? Congratulations, you have the tools to answer the question, and you're not even a theoretician! And I bet you thought of music in these terms already, albeit likely in different (r possibly even unconscious) terms.

Gah. I have an appointment to get to, but TL;DR: Music theory is not what you think it is. Hating something or disregarding it does not automatically mean elitism. Use words more correctly.

 

[trooper6]

As a New Musicologist (I'm a professor of Musicology at a university)--I tend to go with Edgar Varese's definition of music as organized sound.

As for people who say dub step isn't music, well that attack isn't new. People said rap wasn't music, people said heavy metal wasn't music, people said rock'n'roll wasn't music. What they mean when they say that is, "I don't like this music and no one else should either."

As long as those people don't have the power to institutionalize their opinions, I ignore them.

 

[Musiclly enhanced]

either the effort to make something so simple its brilliant (original as well)
or make something very technical is good music but not stupidly complex.
however one bloke pressing samples to a 4/4 timing is by no means *skill*

 

[omega 616]

To me music is something that takes some skill to play, a guitar, a drum set, piano or whatever.

Dubstep and anything created on computer, like dance are not music to me. There was a game called "music" and "music 2001" (I think), on those games you could make stuff equal to dubstep and dance music ... if a below average intelligent child with no musical training can do it, it's not music.

Would you say that a group of untrained people singing together (like traditional music in a village or whatever) isn't music?

Get enough people to sing and it becomes harmonious, from football matches to choirs, it always happens. Hell, I can't sing for shit but I was still in the school choir ... me and friend for a laugh decided to join, we never went to any practices but we stood up at the back of the assemblies with the rest of the choir and sang, first time we did it the rest of my class looked at us like "WTF are you doing?" it was priceless.

It's still not music, it's just singing ... I would make an exception for barbershop though

 

[garjian]

As a former jazz studies major: Music, in its broadest sense, is any combination of sounds that elicits some sort of emotional response from the the listener. It doesn't matter if it's any good or not.

I think dubstep sounds like someone pushing a dishwasher down a mountain, but it's still technically music.

This on the otherhand, is excellent.

This might break your heart, but i cant listen to this and not notice how similar it is to 21st Century Schizoid Man, which i know from guitar hero. its weird... every few seconds theres something that sounds exactly like it, but on different instruments...

I like it though... it might give me a headache after a while and i wouldnt listen to it with headphones mind you.

Anyway, i agree, or rather cant disagree with your definition... so i cant really add to the discussion much, so ill just post some music of my own like everybody else. (edit: or what everybody was doing on page 1 :/ ill add something...)


A lot of people seem to regard most of the music i listen to as a "random bunch of noises" and i hate when they do, because all i can tell them to do is the listen to it properly. Other than that, all i can do it to trick them into contradicting themselves and therefore making their opinion invalid. Really, all music is a random collection of noises, and if you cant understand it, i guess its your fault and not the musicians.

Rambling.

I truly love game soundtracks... after posting that Knuckles Chaotix song, i cant bring myself to stop the playlist... its just running through all the brilliance of Phoenix Wright and Metroid Prime and various Pokemon games...
The only purpose game music serves is to set a scene and a mood, and good examples create these environments in your head even with the images on screen to help them, and on top of that, they get seeped in nostalgia if you liked the game theyre from.
Id love to produce this stuff as a career, but i wouldnt even know how to get noticed in such a specific field... (but but but but but huh? ...im so lazy and rambling.)

 

[Dark Prophet]

Music is an art form and like with any art some people say one kind of music is just pointless noise and other people say the same about some other kind of music. Like for example a lot of people tell me that this


is not music, but it's one of my favourite piece of music.

 

[Shivarage]

Art is not about making a living from it, look at Van Gogh, didn't sell a painting while he was alive. Professional artists ONLY want to help their fellow artists as they aren't competition, because no two people will make the same art, real artists want to hear everyone expressing themselves, that's the point. If you are making music to be rich, you've missed the point.

I don't think my opinion is better than anyone else's, after all it's still only an opinion, But I do consider myself to be better informed due to my studies, being able to critique something doesn't mean you want to be a critic, it just means you are aware of the trappings of the medium, you would assume someone who went to uni to study film would know of the cliches and try to avoid them and they would learn about good pacing and try to utilise it.

Hehe, Van Gogh was a very depressed person and he tried to make money from his art but couldn't, making him more depressed - how ironic

You do realize "education" didn't always exist and people still created and did brilliant things without it?

So delusioned and elitist... you will soon discover the truth once you leave school and into the real world where nobody owes you anything, you really don't think people use underhanded tactics to prevent competition???

 

[the Dept of Science]

Simple it has to invoke a strong emotion
see romance, hate, anger, solace, melancholy, relaxation
or physical movement, ie dance, waltz, chacha etc

If it can't fulfil these criteria than it can go away (byebye bad dubstep)

And there is good dubstep, just not enough to justify all the bad dubstep floating around.

There is no way that's particular to dubstep though. Bad classical, rock or folk music doesn't invoke an emotion but its still music.

Also, the emotion thing varies so much from person to person. There's lots of music that doesn't invoke emotions in me simply because I don't relate to it, either because it strongly relates to a culture that I have little experience of (a bluesman singing about slaving on the cotton fields or a rapper singing about street life).

I don't see why people are so aversed to bad art that they can't even accept it as being part of the medium. Noone doubts that The Room is a movie, why isn't dubstep music?

 

[Fishyash]

IMO It's music when you say it's music. It is designed to get an emotional response through sound. People who say "X is not music" instantly make me ignore their opinion, no matter how likely I could have agreed with them.

I'm not an expert on music, not by a long shot.

My opinion of dubstep is like this.

The vast majority of it, is shite, but when a good dubstep track comes along, I really like it.

Like this, for instance.

Ehhhhh...

I hope I am not the only one (DAMNIT I hope this is the only time I say that...) who thinks this doesn't fall under the category of dubstep.

Some electronic music genres fall under a pretty simple premise, despite how much pidgeonholing a record label owner or a magazine writer may try and distort it. I think dubstep contains such a gift, as what the genre is, is within its very name. I am not willing to debate if the very construction of a track's genre can be explained within its name is a good thing though.

EDIT I LIKE FIXING QUOTES OK?

 

[RobDaBank]

For me music is something you just simply enjoy, regardless of criteria. Hell the first song on my SD card player in my car is Asking Alexandria - Final Episode and the next one is honestly, Glee Cast - Umberella/Singing In The Rain

Everyone has their own choice, who are we to judge people based on music preference? Thats discrimination, and I, for one, am not Hitler!

 

[El Presidente]

I listen to both extreme metal and hip-hop, so I get a lot of that "not real music" nonsense from both sides. Herp derp that's just some guy screaming it's a bunch of noise, hurf durf it's just someone talking over a beat how can you call that music.

I don't get too hung up over the "definition" of music. If I enjoy it then I listen to it, take your "I'm such an expert at music theory I can definitively prove the music you're listening to is bad" and shove it up your arse.

 

[unoleian]

Generally, the first people to judge that a kind of music isn't actually music, are generally exactly the people least qualified to make such a judgment in the first place.

Damn straight dubstep is music. Some of it's really fucking good music, to boot.