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Music is sound, sound can be music

It was hard to make a title that fit what I wanted to talk about. Reading the thread about the deleted Hip-hop/Rap thread was an interesting window on some of the mindset here (some of which was unfortunate and depressing too but that's the world we live in....). What struck me was the attitude that if it's not played on a traditional instrument it's not music, or it just "sucks" in some way.

First, many instruments today, lots of brass ones especially or guitars didn't exist until the last 100-200 years. Do they not make music?

But you have to learn to use it skillfully, so I read. Knowing how to read and write music surely qualifies one yes? Talented even, if your can write complex pieces?

Ok, then. 25 years ago I worked with early digital audio systems using sequencers and MIDI. My partner graduated with honors from Berklee college of music and was a composer. He wrote some amazing work without touching anything more than a mouse and keyboard. Was it music?

10 years later I worked with another person who did incredible work in sound collage and electronic music. They did use a controller that is essentially a piano keyboard but it only sends note data to the system. She could play wonderfully on a real piano but often used non-linear editing and manipulation to produce innovative soundscapes. Was it music?

There are other examples where people do all sorts of experimental things with sound and not a single traditional instrument is ever used. Is it art?

My point here is if you don't like something that's fine. It doesn't make you a bad, stupid, or ignorant person. Neither are you those things if you don't understand why people create things or how they choose to do it. Of course, you are free to say what you like, that's your right. But don't be surprised when you are considered ignorant and intolerant when all you have to say is negative and derogatory remarks.

Life is too short to spend energy on things you don't like. Move on past and participate in the things you enjoy and let others enjoy theirs. Or maybe open you mind and give something more than a cursory glance if curiosity gets you, explore, read, listen and learn. You may decide it really isn't for you, but then again you might.
jet88
frogman
7,353 posts
 
hilde45, thanks for your response.

First, let’s be clear, I have no interest in “overturning the relativist position”, but please understand that this does not mean that I find truth in that position. However, I must admit that I find the use of the word “overturn” rather telling and indicative of at least one aspect of our respective stances. My interest is solely in recognizing, and in this particular case, being free to hold and express a position that is not in agreement with the relativist position. Moreover, the way that I interpret Putnam’s comment is that it is in opposition to the relativist position and affirming of my position. He explains what is “wrong” with the relativist position; which is, the absence of standards used to arrive at that position. My position values the use of standards as the means to arriving at a truth; admittedly, my truth. I don’t quite see how that comment supports the relativist position

**** everything we label is labeled with our concepts, our words, and connect to our schemes -- and our purposes. ****

Exactly; and this includes the concept of non reliance on standards. This notion can indeed be extremely purposeful; and not always in a positive way.
jet88 OP
62 posts
 
I'm very happy about the discussion my thread has sparked. Even the difference of opinions is great. The level of discourse and ideas presented about what music is, or could be is fantastic

Give yourselves applause for showing that this community of audiophiles is full of intelligent, articulate people who can have discussions with maturity, respect, thoughtfulness, and a shared love of sound.

Keep the tent big, welcome the strange and unusual, the different and weird. Yes, there's things out there that are deeply problematic like misogyny, racism, glorifying violence, etc. Together we can try to understand, ask questions, discuss and analyze and sift the wheat from the chaff, and by doing so discover new things worthy of our time and attention. The rest will naturally fall away.

Thanks again, you have all heartened me in rather dark times.
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,520 posts
 

https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Appearance-Seriously-Dynamic-European/dp/0863159273



The physicist Henry Bortoft elucidated the Goethe vision in 3 books....

There is many way for a WHOLE to desintegrate itself in relative parts, but there is only one way for the parts to be reintegrated in the WHOLE they never ceased to be anyway.....We must transform ourself to perceive truth of the phenomena...They are not "objects" given to us in a passive distribution set for eternity...

Relativism is the error of considering the desintegration process to be the only one and unevitable because the WHOLE is considered to be ONLY the perception of ADDITIVE external parts...

This is a "vision" and consciousness disease, the WHOLE is in the part and shine through it, and to perceive it we must flow ourself with the phenomena and cease to use language and concepts always in an external participation to the phenomena reducing any phenomena to be an external objects, we must be included ourselves in the phenomena and like Goethe said the language and concepts must come and be born with and in the phenomena...

For example in music the "time" is never the time of an external clock ever....It is a flowing, sprouting, rythmical time where all is included even ourselves and the past and future...An internal time and an intemporal duration...The maestro conduct, feeling this time and transmitting it through the right timing wave of his body/soul to all musicians...In jazz improvisation, this is the feeling/perception of this internal time that is the act of playing together.... Then the improvisation reflect not a sum of accidents but a perfect convergence of synchronised events as feelings in each musician...And in the listeners...

The time of the "discovery" or the time of the observation is not always ONLY an external time either...But i already wrote too long post....
😊



«If all is relative, the absolute posit itself, it is the relation»-Lanza Del Vasto

«Creativity erased all relativism»-Anonymus Smith

«No relativism can write the ninth symphony or create infinitesimal calculus, an integrated perceptive vision could»-Anonymus Smith

«True skepticism is not relativism but the "suspension" of judgement»-Anonymus Smith





hilde45's avatar
hilde45
4,783 posts
 
@frogman 
I see better now. Thanks for the clarification. I think it puts you, me, and Putnam much closer together than I realized. I followed Putnam's career and wrote a book in which he featured. In the end, he attacks relativism, but it is such a wooly word, it's very hard prey to catch. Rorty does a good job of elucidating the issue. In the end, Putnam remains committed to pragmatism and perspectivism (which many equate with relativism because they're both anti-absolutisms), but because of Putnam's background in science, mathematics, and logics, he's a bit more realist-leaning than some others in that camp. We're really in the weeds here. so I suggest, now, that we agree to agree.
mglik
887 posts
 
“Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to objectivity within a particular domain and assert that facts in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assessed.”

My post about Rodrigo in Mozart in the Jungle hearing music in the sounds of NYC is a good example of Relativism. Going back to the OP, and my post, music-or anything-is in the perspective of the observer.
Rap, Opera, Metal, etc. are all valid musical forms-from my perspective.
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