# What is music?



## Flaneurette (Mar 4, 2017)

Music... it seems so obvious that we don't think about what it actually is.

What is music to you?

Care to philosophize on this?

http://whatismusic.info also has many explanations, so it seems, there isn't a clear cut answer.


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## G.R. Baumann (Mar 5, 2017)

Hi there, very much so! 

Just briefly, as I promised to make my famous spinache bolognese ....

Since a very long time, let me see.... 44 years it is, Geeze!.... after studying lot's of scores and reading some the weirdest stuff on the planet such as Adorno et al., music to me was always a I. language and II. in contrast to all other known languages, has no inherent ability to produce lies.

_Music doesn't lie! - _James Marshall Hendrix -

Best
G


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## Fer (Mar 5, 2017)

Oh, thats the question! Its some kind of food? But just for the soul… At least, like the different foods, music has a lot of different flavours.

Do you think that the ultimate goal of music is beauty?


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## pmcrockett (Mar 5, 2017)

_Organized sound_ is the closest thing I've seen to a definition that covers all bases.


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## Flaneurette (Mar 5, 2017)

G.R. Baumann said:


> in contrast to all other known languages, has no inherent ability to produce lies. _Music doesn't lie! - _James Marshall Hendrix -



I like this... very much so. Especially in self-expression, the music one writes is part of who one is. Can't fake that. Can't copy it.

My own -somewhat archaic- answer: language of the soul?


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## G.R. Baumann (Mar 6, 2017)

Well, while cooking my spinach bolognese, I was thinking... Music has many dimensions to discover, one of it's most interesting is perhaps the social vector. It is a reflection of the current Zeitgeist, a mirror of the social-economical-political reality of a given time a musician lives in. The way music was written, performed and preceived throughout the centuries changed of course. Still, to date music is suffering from a certain ivory tower syndrome, but strong influencers brought change to the establishments demand of how music has to be performed.

People like Daniel Barenboim, Gidon Kremer, Nigel Kennedy, or Igor Levit for example could be described by a common red line, the desire to make the world a better place.

Of course, as performing musicians, they are in the priviledged position to use the power of communication and connect with the audience. I guess, they perceive it as their ethical duty.

I was born in 1961, and when I compare the stuff that aired on the radio back then with today, well, I am not listening to radio much anymore. Simplistic folk music is part of a regular weekend entertainment on TV with 3-4 hour shows that went back in time and are part of the coercive powers that manipulate the public. All coercive powers do that, all! 

Patriotic, nationalistic, reactionary, 4/4 stomping drunks, your average upright citizen, beating their wives 3 times a year, church going, strong pro life supporter, living in constant fear, the perfect worker bee, the perfect consumer, plastic people. 

This music is used to sedate the public into the ultimate political apathy, and it works. 

- _Government is the Entertainment division of the military-industrial complex._ - Frank Zappa 

Best
G


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## Fer (Mar 6, 2017)

That reminds me some interesting passages of Plato´s Republic in which Socrates says that in the ideal State music should be prohibited. There are some very interesting afirmations there; Plato says for example that the music in Lydian mode must be absolutely prohibited becasue its fragile and delicate, and thus it weaks the citizen´s souls.

So there you have a classic philosopher notating something that to me sounds totally true: music can shape the afective and spiritual state of the soul (and thus it is something that has political interest, at least for Plato).

I know people that like to hear sad pop when they are sad because it connects with their feelings; they like also to hear energetic music to get motivation… so you have here some sort of “medical” use of music. I think that we like to change or enhace our feelings and emotions through music. And i think that there is a lot of people that compose music to explain and reflect their feelings which of course its legit.

But is this something that has been happening always? I guess that this happens specially since romanticism. For me, for example, Gregorian Chant is a whole different thing; there is a sense of trascendence that is not present in lets say, Chopin, and of course in Coldplay. Gregorian music is not about “how i feel today”; its a reflection of the soul elevated to a very special and sacred state of peace. There is beauty in Chopin and in Gregorian Chant and Coldplay but i think that music is a whole different story in both cases. And in between Gregorian and Coldplay you have for example Mozart; his music is not about trascendence, but is not also “about feelings” in the same sense that Coldplay. (please note that i dont want to say that “this is better than this”; i like every musical example that i have used). This is how i perceive things, at least. And i think that in every case you have reflection of the Zeitgeist...


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## G.R. Baumann (Mar 7, 2017)

Trivium: grammar, logic, rhetoric...Quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy

Isn't the level of interconnectedness fascinating?

This Zeitgeist phenomenon goes really deep if you look at how music is used in context, and most important, on purpose! Here as a tool of mass psychological manipulation, artificial enthusiasm is triggered by using certain types of music. This can be observed regulary in totalitarian systems.

From 1981, but well... http://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/arts/musical-freedom-and-why-dictators-fear-it.html?pagewanted=all

So, what does it mean for creative artists? I would propose to include all arts here, despite the fact that music has it's own territory. One of the basics of all art is freedom of expression. This does come together with a responsibility if it is to be really art, in contrast to "manufactured consent", to use this term of Noam Chomsky. I think that installments such as Pop Idol, Eurovision and the likes are fit to be described as manufactured consent.

The Chinese dissident artist Ai Wei Wei is a good example to see how incumbents of power always clash with the very idea of arts.

Thanks for starting this thread!



> On 24 October 2012, Ai went live with a cover of Gingham Style the famous K-pop phenomenon by South Korean rapper PSY, through the posting of a four-minute long parody video on YouTube. The video was an attempt to criticize the Chinese government's attempt to silence his activism and was quickly blocked by national authorities. On 22 May 2013, Ai debuted his first single _Dumbass_ over the internet, with a music video shot by cinematographer Christopher Doyle. The video was a reconstruction of Ai's experience in prison, during his 81-day detention, and dives in and out of the prison's reality and the guarding soldiers' fantasies. He later released a second single, _Laoma Tihua_, on 20 June 2013 along with a video on his experience of state surveillance, with footage compiled from his studio's documentaries. On 22 June 2013, the two-year anniversary of Ai's release, he released his first music album _The Divine Comedy._ Later in August, he released a third music video for the song _Chaoyang Park_, also included in the album.


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## G.R. Baumann (Mar 7, 2017)

When you're ready to strike, he mumbles about non-violence. 
When you pinch his ear, he says it's no cure for diarrhea. 
You say you're a mother-fucker, he claims he's invincible. 
You say you're a mother-fucker, he claims he's invincible.
Fuck forgiveness, tolerance be damned, to hell with manners, the low-life's invincible.
Fuck forgiveness, tolerance be damned, to hell with manners, the low-life's invincible.
Oh dumbass, oh such dumbass! Oh dumbass, oh such dumbass!
Oh dumbass, oh such dumbass! Oh dumbass, oh such dumbass!
Lalalalala, lalalalala Lalalalala, lalalalala
Lalalalala, lalalalala Lalalalala, lalalalala

Stand on the frontline like a dumbass, in a country that puts out like a hooker.
The field's full of fuckers, dumbasses are everywhere.
The field's full of fuckers, dumbasses are everywhere.
Fuck forgiveness, tolerance be damned, to hell with manners, the low-life's invincible.
You say you're a mother-fucker, he claims he's invincible. 
You say you're a mother-fucker, he claims he's invincible.
The field is full of fuckers, dumbasses are everywhere.
The field's full of fuckers, dumbasses are everywhere.


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## mc_deli (Mar 7, 2017)

Well it ain't drawing coloured bars on a computer that's fo sho


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## tonaliszt (Mar 8, 2017)

One of my favorite quotes: Art, like love, is easier to experience than define.


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## Flaneurette (Mar 14, 2017)

If have this idea that everything is capable of generating music. Everything seems to be -or at least capable of- producing waves, right? thoughts are waves, seasons are waves, energy, light, everything seems to vibrate and resonate. Maybe music is a extension of ourselves in which we can hear our own resonances, our own waves, our own thoughts? It comes awful close to the concept of "spirit"...


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## Fer (Mar 14, 2017)

And at the end... it seems that in the atomic level... pitch, and therefore harmony... is nothing more than just polirythm...


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## G.R. Baumann (Mar 15, 2017)

Thanks Fer!  I did not know this chap. His masterly staged edutainment clips are worthwhile watching.

One reason I keep coming back to music in a social context is it's relation to power throughout the centuries. Bigger brains than I came together to evaluate these "strings attached". - Doh!  -



> In the Baroque period the production of Western Art music was usually sponsored by patrons. As an essential part of social life, music accompanied both everyday and extraordinary events, in both sacred and secular contexts. Commissioned by monarchs, high priests and aristocrats, music became a means of celebrating the power of these figures and their clients, of their lineage, if not of an entire nation. Within this perspective, music emerges as a powerful instrument of political propaganda, subject to pressures and to censorship.



Since Napster, and the Internet in general, music has been "democratised" in much of the same ways Photography has. Think about it, photography once was an elitist domain, special knowledge, special and expensive tools were requirements. Today, everyone has access to high end tools at affordable price tags. As a result, "everyone" is a photographer these days. How that relates now to quality vs. quantity is a pretty obvious observation. With a gazillion of cat and food pictures emerging daily on the Net, it shifted towards quantity.

I guess the same can be observed in music. The quality of stuff that is produced these days is low level to put it mildly.

It's all fake musik. Total loosers. Fake music. Very sad. Really.


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## G.R. Baumann (Mar 15, 2017)

Songs of War: Music as a Weapon



> *Songs of War: Music as a Weapon* *Winner of an international Emmy.* Music elates, touches the soul and bypasses reason. Music is magic. But precisely this magic can turn it into an insidious weapon – for music and violence belong together. The brutal power of African war dances, the ferocity of Maori Hakas, the earth-shattering roar of US sound guns blasting Metallica at Taliban hideouts – the principle is always the same: Aggressive sounds demoralise the enemy and whip the allies into a frenzy. In ’Songs of War’, we explore the extraordinary harmony between music and violence. Sesame Street composer, Christopher Cerf, always wanted his music to be fun and entertaining. But then he learned that his songs had been used to torture prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. He is stunned by this abuse of his work and wants to find out how this could happen. Cerf embarks on a journey to learn what makes music such a powerful stimulant. In the process, he speaks to soldiers, psychologists and prisoners tortured with his music at Guantanamo and find out how the military has been employing music as a potent weapon for hundreds of years.



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2050620/

http://www.psywarrior.com/MusicUsePSYOP.html


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## Fer (Mar 15, 2017)

But you can see this whole new scenario in a positive way; the available tools today are a dream come true. How many of us would not be doing music without these tools? Me for sure.

Anyway, regarding to the social aspect… i guess i dont agree with the idea of “music as being a propaganda tool in past centuries”; that idea makes sense only in totalitarian regimes but not always by default. Obioulsy Lighetti would not have been sponsored in Bach´s times. But Lighetti is a son of his time… and therefore Lighetti-in-the-time-of-Bach is an unreal scenario; again: Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist is stronger than censorship or sponsorship.

I would say that in music actually we live into some kind of romanticism 2.0 era. From sad pop to bombastic epicness… i tend to see a common denominator; Music is to produce/enhace and sublimate feelings in an artistic way. Romanticism was just about that. Again…in Bach, or renacentist music there are feelings behind the music of course… but i would say that they appear in a much more discrete and humble way… they are not the protagonists of the music. Can you say which are the feelings exposed in a random Bach fuge? Its more difficult to answer that question in relation to Bach´s music that in relation to any given romantic piece of music, or in a pop song. And there are a lot of feelings that i simply dont find in Bach, not to say in Gregorian… for example… melancholia, nostalgia, rage, fear…


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## ghostnote (Mar 17, 2017)

Where's @KEnK ? I'm sure he has something to contribute to this.

I think music is a clever manipulation of sound with the goal to evoke feelings. Sound is everywhere, but only Humans evolved so far that they are capable of sending out feelings trough the air. Music is everywhere nowadays, so we don't question it. You can describe a feeling with poetry just to a certain level. Music is an extention. I'm sure Neanderthals had songs.


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## ghostnote (Mar 17, 2017)

Fer said:


> That reminds me some interesting passages of Plato´s Republic in which Socrates says that in the ideal State music should be prohibited. There are some very interesting afirmations there; Plato says for example that the music in Lydian mode must be absolutely prohibited becasue its fragile and delicate, and thus it weaks the citizen´s souls.
> 
> So there you have a classic philosopher notating something that to me sounds totally true: music can shape the afective and spiritual state of the soul (and thus it is something that has political interest, at least for Plato).



Don't let Steve Vai read this, he'll be pissed.... as soon as he's back from the ultrazone of course. :D

I think the very term pop music was very present back then. I can imagine that an ordinary greece soldier hearing a Lydian song over and over again might reshape his toughts and his role in society.



G.R. Baumann said:


> But is this something that has been happening always? I guess that this happens specially since romanticism. For me, for example, Gregorian Chant is a whole different thing; there is a sense of trascendence that is not present in lets say, Chopin, and of course in Coldplay. Gregorian music is not about “how i feel today”; its a reflection of the soul elevated to a very special and sacred state of peace. There is beauty in Chopin and in Gregorian Chant and Coldplay but i think that music is a whole different story in both cases. And in between Gregorian and Coldplay you have for example Mozart; his music is not about trascendence, but is not also “about feelings” in the same sense that Coldplay. (please note that i dont want to say that “this is better than this”; i like every musical example that i have used). This is how i perceive things, at least. And i think that in every case you have reflection of the Zeitgeist...



I already said this in another thread: You can't understand Chopin unless you're familiar with the polish soul.

Gregorian chants however come from a religious background, just like Buddhist and Shamanic chants which are used to let your mind go into a state of meditation. Breathing plays an important role in this.

The qustion here is wheter Music shapes the Zeitgeist or Zeitgeist the Music.


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## Fer (Mar 19, 2017)

ghostnote said:


> Don't let Steve Vai read this, he'll be pissed.... as soon as he's back from the ultrazone of course. :D





ghostnote said:


> The qustion here is wheter Music shapes the Zeitgeist or Zeitgeist the Music.


yes... surely it goes in both directions...
ocasionally appears an explorer pushing everything in new directions... do you have the sensation that every musical possibility has been explored right now? i tend to think that actually there is a common feeling between composers thinking that every possible direction in music has been explored... i wonder if composers in the past had the same impression


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## Uncle Peter (Mar 21, 2017)

Music - creation/ performance/ listening is a universal characteristic of all human societies/ tribes. I can never resist a rant on this - but I take the view that it's essentially a mechanism to ease the cognitive dissonance that arises from the conflict between the inner chimp brain and the more cerebral/advanced outer grey matter. We're all still subject to the chimp's emotional onslaught. Many people end up in prison because of flashes of anger, greed, perversion etc. arising from the wild chimp. More than anything society demands control of the chimp. That we act in accordance with laws, that without being forced down our throats most of us recognise as being morally right. I.e. we have developed a moral sense, yet we are still subject to the chimp. 

For me, Western 'art' music represents a system of abstract thinking that controls the chimp. The organisation of sound somehow triggers the loading up of an 'emotional state' CD into the brain's CD Player. Music provides a framework upon which one can explore and control their age-old emotions. It represents mind control.

Of course, music has served to enhance and focus emotional states at social occasions: Weddings, funerals, parties, state funded mind control, organised religion that kind of thing. 

To summarise it partly arises out of the need to co-operate as a civilised society/tribe/group with rules and morality. A tool for mind-control and enhanced co-operation for a species that increasingly behaves like a superorganism rather than a collection of separate entities.


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## ghostnote (Mar 21, 2017)

Fer said:


> do you have the sensation that every musical possibility has been explored right now?


I'd really like to answer that, but I can't. I think it's the context, the Zeitgeist that lets musicians create their own vision of reality. The basics may be more or less the same, but the context is always different. There's plenty of Bach in the Beatles.


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## JonFairhurst (Mar 21, 2017)

Uncle Peter said:


> Music ... essentially a mechanism to ease the cognitive dissonance that arises from the conflict between the inner chimp brain and the more cerebral/advanced outer grey matter...



But how does my chimp brain control my lizard self? 

Maybe food. 

"Nom, nom, nom..."


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## gregh (Mar 30, 2017)

JonFairhurst said:


> But how does my chimp brain control my lizard self?
> 
> Maybe food.
> 
> "Nom, nom, nom..."


I imagine chimps are thinking "Thank God we didn't get that aggressive human brain" 

I have written a little on the biological basis of music - here is a little excerpt of something someone commissioned last year that I am not sure I have the copyright to and can reproduce in full. But this is just a bit so should be okay...
"
The foetal listener bathes in a relatively simple auditory environment. Like traffic in the suburban distance, the regular sounds of the mother’s heartbeat, digestion and respiration sit quietly in the background. Less predictable are sounds coming from the outside world, which must first pass through the tissues and intrauterine fluids of the mother’s body before they can be heard . The mother’s body reduces their volume, particularly the volume of frequencies above 250Hz (around middle C and above). Voices, both male and female, are quite audible to the foetus, but the loudest and most distinctive sound the foetus will hear is the mother’s voice as not only does her voice come via the air, like all other external sounds, but it is also conducted directly through her body. The mother’s voice is perhaps twice the volume of all regular sounds reaching the foetus.
In utero, the mother’s voice is heard more as sound than as speech due to the filtering of the body reducing the speech signal complexity to the point where even adult listeners cannot understand the speech that reaches foetal hearing. Instead of speech, then, the foetus hears the modulated pitch of vocal phrases, presented with all the pauses, novelty and repetition of normal adult speech – but without the words and syllables.

These wordless phrases have enough information for a near term foetus to want to listen longer to speech and speech like sounds than listen to unfamiliar music, and for a newly born baby to prefer hearing human speech over synthetic speech. Similarly, newborns who have heard their mother reading or singing to them when still in the womb, prefer hearing the mother reading and singing those stories again over and above hearing those same stories and songs from anyone else. From birth, then, a baby has preferences that carry emotional significance and those preferences have been developed with proto-musical vocal sounds. More broadly, at the very first awakening of consciousness, in utero and before vision, sound is the primary conduit for the emotional signification of the external world.
"


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## mc_deli (Mar 31, 2017)

My personal philosophy has always been sex, drugs, and rock and roll ...but, as long as there's sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll.


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## Flaneurette (Apr 19, 2017)

Another curveball:



> According to the de Broglie hypothesis, every object in the universe is a wave.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_wave

Which is fascinating in itself. Maybe the Universe and everything in it is Music. A cosmic symphony, progressing through time.


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