# How would you define Music?



## johan25 (Dec 10, 2010)

How would you define Music?

I've found many but I like the following one:

''*Music is a succession of tones arranged in a specific rhythm*''

So to become a composer, one needs:

A couple of tones, mixed together and rhythm .. voila  

I wish it was that easy :mrgreen:


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## David Story (Dec 10, 2010)

Organized sound.


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## Dan Mott (Dec 10, 2010)

Music for me is something that only some can express their true feelings and emotions through.


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## RiffWraith (Dec 10, 2010)

johan25 @ Sat Dec 11 said:


> How would you define Music?



It is sound and emotion created by all living composers. It surrounds us, and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.


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## Patrick de Caumette (Dec 10, 2010)

a compulsive disorder


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## Ed (Dec 10, 2010)

johan25 @ Fri Dec 10 said:


> So to become a composer, one needs:
> 
> A couple of tones, mixed together and rhythm .. voila
> 
> I wish it was that easy :mrgreen:


\

Sure it is, there's just no accounting for how good you are! 8)


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## impressions (Dec 12, 2010)

"music(Art) is making something out of nothing and selling it", Frank Zappa.

and another :
"Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is THE BEST"


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## Lex (Dec 12, 2010)

...sound that evokes emotional reaction.

alex


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## Guy Bacos (Dec 12, 2010)

It's extremely difficult to define "music". When I think about the definition and look at what's been said here, I could find exceptions for each post. Seems easier to live it than to define it.


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## ozmorphasis (Dec 12, 2010)

johan25 @ Fri Dec 10 said:


> How would you define Music?
> 
> I've found many but I like the following one:
> 
> ...



You can't! That's the whole point. If you could define music properly, then we wouldn't need to leave words behind when creating/experiencing music. However, it is obvious that one of the prerequisites of music is an experience of sound _independent_ of the need for verbal/logical paradigms such as _definitions_. Definitions are based on exactly that part of our brain that music has the power to bypass.

Nietsche believed that music and dance were two of the highest forms of art because of their ability to express so much, so directly, without needing to refer to anything else. When words do this, they become a form of music. Definitions on the other hand reside in logic, which while needed and powerful, completely misses this effect of music...the very effect that you would want to define.


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## ozmorphasis (Dec 12, 2010)

Guy Bacos @ Sun Dec 12 said:


> It's extremely difficult to define "music". When I think about the definition and look at what's been said here, I could find exceptions for each post. Seems easier to live it than to define it.



...or, just read this quote by Guy instead of my more philosophically pompous explanation. ~o)


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## BadOrange (Dec 21, 2010)

Organized noise. Pretty sure i'm ripping off some modern composer's quote.


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## Musicologo (Dec 22, 2010)

SCRUTON, Roger, 1997, The Aesthetics of Music, Claredon Press, Oxford

p. 96

Music is the intentional object of an experience that only rational beings can have, and only through the exercise of imagination. To describe it we must have resource to metaphor, not because music resides in an analogy with other things, but because the metaphor describes exactly what we hear, when we hear sounds as music.


in other words, music is what happens inside your head when you ear certain sounds.

What's the relation between music and sound?


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## clarkcontrol (Dec 23, 2010)

My definition borrows heavily from John Cage:

Music is the combination of sound and silence over time


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## Hannes_F (Dec 23, 2010)

johan25 @ Sat Dec 11 said:


> How would you define Music?



As the singing of the soul.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 23, 2010)

Music is what happens when your mind tries to make order out of the chaotic energy pushing against your eardrums. When the ordering is fairly easy, you call it 'music', when it's a lot more work to organize the many changes in pressure, you call it 'noise'.


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## SergeD (Dec 23, 2010)

Music is not what you think. 

SergeD


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## Ashermusic (Dec 23, 2010)

David Story @ Fri Dec 10 said:


> Organized sound.



+1. although the John Cage definition works for me as well.

That said, why do we need to define it?


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## bryla (Dec 27, 2010)

I read a Bob Moog quote that said: Music is changing sound. A static sound is not music


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## EnTaroAdun (Dec 27, 2010)

Music doesn't need to be defined.


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## wst3 (Dec 27, 2010)

it's what I'm doing when I'm smiling!


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## Guy Bacos (Dec 27, 2010)

It's true music IS organized sounds, but can it be defined as that? I would doubted.
I imagine organized sounds understates organized rhythms as well.

Maybe it just can't be defined in a few words, it just needs a fuller explanation, an entire paragraph.


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## SergeD (Dec 31, 2010)

erockrazor @ Fri Dec 31 said:


> "Music is anything that someone considers music."



+1
Music is what it means to you. Music is not what you think is what you feel.

SergeD


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## Guy Bacos (Dec 31, 2010)

erockrazor @ Fri Dec 31 said:


> "Music is anything that someone considers music."



That statement is true, but I find it a terrible definition of music.


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## autopilot (Dec 31, 2010)

This

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK2tWVj6lXw


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