Welcome back, what a mess. I like sorting out pissy little arguments between two grown men about as much as seeing Oscar Pistorius' annoying little phizog continually pop up in the news.
It's a shame as the thread otherwise has a lot of good debate and expression, but these posts are equally intertwined with the dross, making it both repulsive for other respectable users and my life harder.
Both of you should know better, I've spoken to you both in private. I've no option but to give you both time out for one week. Any continuations after that may well be considerably longer. I'd hate to do that, as I like you both and feel you both have given enormous positive contributions, but this forum and its users should be respected.
The irony is that, even though very different, both your arguments are equally valid and correct in your own personal ideals. There's no need to attack someone else's. In fact, the exchange of ideas of what music
is is actually beneficial in broadening your own minds and trying something different.
I think music has a different definition for every person out there. It's not anything, per se, that follows a strict set of rules. The ear is in the beholder. The line between what is sound (which is definable by science), and what is music (which largely isn't), is entirely subjective. One man's music is another man's noise. There's no specific formula.
Going off on a tangent, I remember travelling down to London one time on the
Duchess of Sutherland (not a posh harlot, unfortunately, but a steam locomotive, all 200 tons of it, plus the carriages), and I'm no train geek but there was one specific period where the train was travelling at full tilt (beyond the legal speed limit according to a nerd who has his head stuck out the window), and for a minute, all the sounds that the train made - the rhythm from the steam locomotive itself (รก la
Skylined by the Prodigy), along with a certain part of the railtrack making the 'clickety clack', and a whole lot more besides, ghost hits, carriage noise, reverberation and decay, etc. - everything just suddenly blended together and formed the most amazing, deeply embodying and intricate rhythms I have ever heard. If only I had had a recorder! D'oh.
The mosaic of what would otherwise be classed as noises came together to blend into something much greater than its parts (you may say this of dubstep). Of course you couldn't ever expect to play it with a piano, it was percussive than instrumental, but for me, it was music right there.
That said, I even found music in the absolutely cacophonous racket that an MRI scanner screamed into my ears on various occasions whilst having scans of the head (they're still searching for my brain, if found please take it to the nearest lost property for collection). The noises an MRI scanner belts out actually sounds not unlike progressive dubstep, but exceedingly brutal, and makes dubstep itself sound like a timid musical box.
If pushed to describe music, then entirely subjectively I'd suggest recognisable tones (even if nonharmonic, to an extent), recognising repeatable structure (loops, or variations of), and timing (rhythm) - possibly followed by harmonic structure and melody a close second - could play a large-ish part in attempting to encapsulate the term.
I think if you unexpectedly enjoy listening to a certain sound - be it birds chirruping, or even the MRI scanner screaming out nonharmonic, unnatural but rhythmic noises - and the sounds have some form of structure, then that effectively can be music (for you).
Then again, some music is entirely organic and fluid, without any discernable repetition yet have recognisable tone(s) structure. Think avant garde artists, Brian Eno, et al.
Is someone who plays the digeridoo a musician?
I don't think the method of composition has any bearing on whether the result is 'music'. If the end result is (perceived by many as) music, and you made it all yourself, then surely that's all that matters, regardless how you got there? Like someone else mentioned earlier, people who initially used sampling were thought of as non musicians. Then it was embraced, and used by nearly everyone.
With Skrillex (seeing as others enjoy continually referring to him on Infekted
), I guess it also comes to that old comparison (second only to 'PC vs Mac'): is a DJ a musician? I think Skrillex is a blend of the two. His songs are very, very musical in many ways, and he clearly knows what music is and is heavily passionate about it (as are his many fans), so even though his tools may not necessarily involve a piano, I feel he's no less of a musician.
And given his success, who's doing it wrong - him or us?