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

tylermunns-

It's been over a year, so If you haven't figured that out yet, then bring it up and see what happens

"What’s “been over a year?”

tylermunns-uh, my post you're responding to. 

@tablejockey Ah.  I saw this as a recently used thread.  
Saw folks contributing recently.  I read the posts, and responded to yours, which was, apparently, made over a year ago.

Still don’t know how talking about certain music on a music forum should ever be considered off-limits on social terms, or any terms.

Duke Ellington has said all that needs saying.

Duke Ellington: “Music is an aural art; if it sounds good, it’s good music.
Leonard Bernstein: “Amen.”

Q. What do you think of the new music?
A. I think that music is neither new nor old.
Q. I mean the young people’s music.
A. I don’t think the age of the performer should be considered one way or the other. If it sounds good, it’s good music, and if it doesn’t, then it is the other kind.

 

Cheers