#77

music ===== ear food

#78

Well said! …

#79

My ear is hungry. Sonic fast food?

#80

I agree with you completely there, but I was referring to the definition of music, not the experience of it. For the definition of the word music, what concept the word music represents in language, we need to look at how the word is used in the community of language users, and derive a meaning from there. How we feel as individuals, or what intuitively happens in the mind or the body are all interesting topics to dive into, but they are secondary to which concepts words represent in language.

#81

I do not think that the inherent properties of music are in the mind either, but the synthesis of those properties to be connected to a communicative representation, such as a word, is most definitely a process of the mind.

#82

As someone already mentioned earlier in this thread, maybe it was you @Erik, there is a difference between trying to come up with a definition of music and thinking about what music is or isn’t in a deeper philosophical sense. This last exercise is far more interesting in my opinion. Although the first one cannot exist without the other and visa versa.

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#83

I agree that it is more interesting, at least from the perspective of depth and insight. Untangling the meaning of words is more of a social/cultural exercise. But if it is language that we wish to use in order to discuss something philosophical, we are stuck with words and their respective meaning, according to the group of language users of the used language. We can wish, hope and discuss that words had deeper meaning, but we do so with the set of language that existed before us, whether we like it or not. Therefore it is of great benefit to understand language and the meaning of words as distinctly as possible, if we wish to communicate with clarity.

#84

One of the reasons I keep bringing up the fact that music can be a subconscious perception, is that I am making an effort to point out that the socially constructed definition is necessarily over-constrained versus the actual experience of music, with the hope that as we continue to discuss the socially constructed linguistic definition of music we might seek to broaden, rather than continue to constrain, the definition.

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#85

But I guess I’ll also refer back to @ht73’s earlier post warning us about the pitfalls of definition-making in music because I think it’s a pretty important point.

Definition of music?

I just figure if you’re going to ignore the warning, then go broad.

#86

I am all for that effort, but I deal with it in a different way. I would say that in order to reach a further depth in the meaning of words, we need first to understand what they currently mean, and the mechanisms, history and development that have resulted in that meaning. If we do so, we can clearly point out its flaws and express better alternatives.

#87

That makes sense to me.

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#88

I’ve kept expanding my own definition over the years and at this point I just say that music is “appreciated time”

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#89

music is a language
different from other languages (english or spanish, por ejemplo) where we have to talk, wait, listen, talk, wait…
in making music together it’s possible to talk(play) and listen at the same time
some may say it’s even required :slightly_smiling_face:

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#90

I’m in this camp. I was working on the following unfinished thought, but you’ve captured it more succinctly. The temporal aspect is key.

Music is an interpreted experience. It is contingent upon, and inseparable from, emotion. Music can result from or be created by any shifting medium. A day can be music. Walking through thoughtful architecture can be music. Any non-deafening sound can be music.

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#91

I’ve never been convinced that time is a distinguishing factor in music. Lots of other mediums which we would all probably agree are distinct from music, like film or theater or even literature, also require a linear unfolding of time. Mediums with a different relation to time are things like painting and sculpture.

Then there’s a further complication: works that begin in linear time do not always continue to be be experienced or exist in linear time as such. See @zebra’s earlier point about memory.

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#92

Time is the time between peaks of an oscillating waveform. Time is the pattern of repetition (or lack of pattern) in a rhythm. Etcetera

#93

Well, only if one thinks of “the work” as a product. If, like me, one thinks of the process as an integral part of art experience, then time is absolutely a factor in these, and all media.

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#94

yes, :slight_smile: even in sidereal time
it is always right now…

playing the drum (frog)
and praying (reciting sutras)
can be the 'highest form…


'come in on the One

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#95

cage lectures on ubuweb!

http://www.ubu.com/sound/cage_lectures.html

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#96

I don’t know if this came up as I have not read the whole thread but an important factor to me is that if someone defines what they have created as music then I would never tell them it is not. I might not like what I hear (or however it is presented) but I don’t think it would give me the right to not call it music. That would feel like censorship to me. It might be my limited understanding that hinders me from seeing its beauty or it might in fact just be rubbish. I’ll mostly never know so I try not to judge what I hear/experience.

I think there is this important link between time, space and memory that makes music so compelling to me. And by space I don’t only mean the architectural room which, of course, has its impact, but also the sociology of the space.
I also find it very interesting that the non-lieu as defined by Marc Augé (from Wikipedia: anthropological spaces of transience where the human beings remain anonymous and that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as " places") has such a specific sound to it.

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