Major and Minor Scales

[Quijote]

Whoa. OK here's my 2 ducats. Music is a word. A word has meaning. That meaning comes from how people use it. In other words, common-usage. [...]

Thank you for the reminders, Ed C! May I counter this :
"The meaning of a word is perhaps only its openess to meaning. The word God has no meaning. Not several either. It is meaning: the adventure and ruin of meaning." [Edmond Jabès]

Actually, I'm rather tired now. I'll try and address Ed C's postings later.

[Quijote]

So, I take a pause here ...

[Quijote]

You started the cultural stereotypes, cowboy, so you should enjoy this.

I'm enjoying you very much, The Dude.

[The Dude]

Whoa.

OK here's my 2 ducats. Music is a word. A word has meaning. That meaning comes from how people use it. In other words, common-usage. The common usage of the word "music" (or ongaku/la musique/musik) for 99 percent of the world is basically classical/rock/pop/rap/jazz/folk. 12-tone music is music because probably more than 50 percent of people asked would identify that as music. However Stockhausen's "Mikrophonie I" - a tiny, tiny percent would call that music. Same with the notorious Cage 4'33". If a hundred thousand people call that music, but 3 billion call it something else, well it's not music, it's something else...

My name for all this other stuff is "sound design". Consider Ligeti's "Artikulation" from 1958:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71hNl_skTZQ
Lots of electronic music books claim that's music - but outside of the academic world and the minds of some hipsters - that's NOT music. That's "funny sounds played in a sequence". Just because many avantgardists want to call that "music" in order to find some kind of legitimacy in the music establishment - doesn't make them the experts on what is or isn't music.

Actually I personally don't feel any need to expunge "funny noises" from my existence. If you saw "Transformers 2" - then you heard over 2 hours of "modern music" - in other words the sounds of giant robots bashing each other to pieces is pretty much the cutting edge of modern music in my opinion as a performer and composer. Totally serious. And I think they add quite alot to the film action. A composer friend of mine wants to buy this modular synth that costs $70,000. Who can afford that? Hollywood.

But I've come to the realization that I don't really enjoy putting on a "sound effects" record and relaxing with a cup of tea at home. I'd much rather hear Beethoven or at least something that sounds like human articulation.

Finally, the definition really comes down to posterity. In Beethoven's time his music was actually much more accepted than most people seem to think. Napoleon's brother wanted him as a personal court composer. He had 20,000 people at his funeral. What composer in the last 50 years can claim the equivalent to that? Michael Jackson I suppose... Elliot Carter is largely considered by many living composers to be the greatest 20th Century composer of the last 70 years. Will he have the fame of Meyerbeer - or Beethoven? Only time will tell.

However I'm pretty skeptical that "funny sounds" will ever really be considered music. 12-tone is over 80 years old and most people HATE it. The reason is because when you go non-diatonic, you toss out the consonant relationships created from the harmonic series - especially major triads. Major chords sound good because they vibrate together in a way that is the closest stacking of harmonic overtones possible. Stacking minor seconds on top of each other sounds like crap because there are harmonic "interference patterns" bouncing all over the place. And then once you get into sound synthesis....that's a whole 'nother ball of wax...

And the irony of it all is that today's Daily Beethoven theme is an "avantgarde" one....


4/1 Squeezed, Stretched and Webernized Beethoven

I think this dude, (honorary dude), Ed has really lasooed the ideas here. Obviously a fabulous intellect there, man. No beating about the corral for you. High five.

[Quijote]

Well EdC, reading the posting above by The Dude it certainly seems you have a fan-cum-slave. Do I detect some irony in his (her) postings? Or am I just jealous? Do tell. (Add icon. You have carte blanche.)

[Quijote]

Whoa.

OK here's my 2 ducats. Music is a word. A word has meaning. That meaning comes from how people use it. In other words, common-usage. The common usage of the word "music" (or ongaku/la musique/musik) for 99 percent of the world is basically classical/rock/pop/rap/jazz/folk. 12-tone music is music because probably more than 50 percent of people asked would identify that as music. However Stockhausen's "Mikrophonie I" - a tiny, tiny percent would call that music. Same with the notorious Cage 4'33". If a hundred thousand people call that music, but 3 billion call it something else, well it's not music, it's something else...

My name for all this other stuff is "sound design". Consider Ligeti's "Artikulation" from 1958:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71hNl_skTZQ
Lots of electronic music books claim that's music - but outside of the academic world and the minds of some hipsters - that's NOT music. That's "funny sounds played in a sequence". Just because many avantgardists want to call that "music" in order to find some kind of legitimacy in the music establishment - doesn't make them the experts on what is or isn't music.

Actually I personally don't feel any need to expunge "funny noises" from my existence. If you saw "Transformers 2" - then you heard over 2 hours of "modern music" - in other words the sounds of giant robots bashing each other to pieces is pretty much the cutting edge of modern music in my opinion as a performer and composer. Totally serious. And I think they add quite alot to the film action. A composer friend of mine wants to buy this modular synth that costs $70,000. Who can afford that? Hollywood.

But I've come to the realization that I don't really enjoy putting on a "sound effects" record and relaxing with a cup of tea at home. I'd much rather hear Beethoven or at least something that sounds like human articulation.

Finally, the definition really comes down to posterity. In Beethoven's time his music was actually much more accepted than most people seem to think. Napoleon's brother wanted him as a personal court composer. He had 20,000 people at his funeral. What composer in the last 50 years can claim the equivalent to that? Michael Jackson I suppose... Elliot Carter is largely considered by many living composers to be the greatest 20th Century composer of the last 70 years. Will he have the fame of Meyerbeer - or Beethoven? Only time will tell.

However I'm pretty skeptical that "funny sounds" will ever really be considered music. 12-tone is over 80 years old and most people HATE it. The reason is because when you go non-diatonic, you toss out the consonant relationships created from the harmonic series - especially major triads. Major chords sound good because they vibrate together in a way that is the closest stacking of harmonic overtones possible. Stacking minor seconds on top of each other sounds like crap because there are harmonic "interference patterns" bouncing all over the place. And then once you get into sound synthesis....that's a whole 'nother ball of wax...

And the irony of it all is that today's Daily Beethoven theme is an "avantgarde" one....


4/1 Squeezed, Stretched and Webernized Beethoven

So, let me attempt a summary of your posting, EdC : music for most people is tonal, diatonic, pleasing, and is most often enjoyed with a cup of tea. At a stretch, other sorts of music, though dissonant, can still be called music, though not to be served with tea. Anything else that does not merit the term "music" (with or without relaxing beverages such as tea) should be denoted as "sound design". Anything not falling within the category "sound design" should be considered as "funny noises", and might well cost several hundred thousand US dollars to create. Anybody diasgreeing with these proclamations will face persecution by the thought police.

[Quijote]

My posting above should show the relevant icon, of course (which I will leave to your [for the moment free] imagination).

[The Dude]

When you swagger like The Dude,
You can tell when someone's stewed,
Watch him sweat an argument,
Which, no doubt, he will resent.

[Sorrano]

I once heard jingle bells done with "funny noises". It was tonal, rhythmic, and quite funny.

[Quijote]

Can one dance to Palestrina? Would one want to?

[Quijote]

So, time for bed for me! I'll leave you cowfolk to keep chewing the cud and please, not too much methane, if you'd be so kind.

[Ed C]

Sorrano 01-04-11 15:23 (UK time)
One of the main things that interests me about music and mathematics concerns the question of attribution.

I imagine many here will feel that they can hear a piece of music that they do not know yet be able to say with a degree of confidence that 'that is by Beethoven' or Mozart or etc.

So, supposed we mapped the music into some mathematical form (e.g MIDI as Sorrano quotes) then, surely(?), we can apply some mathematical pattern-recognition-like process to produce a probability that the said piece is (say) 95% likely to be by Mozart.

After all, I would argue, there aren't many variables to consider: note and note length, harmony, tempo, dynamic, etc.

Great idea! Concerning identifying a composer's work by comparing musical attributes, I once asked on this board what the difference was between a Beethoven piano sonata and a song by Billy Joel - purely on a music theory level. I don't recall ever getting a totally satisfactory answer (but members please correct if I'm wrong). Since I first raised that question I've kind of decided that it was based on frequency of modulations. Beethoven and most music of the classical period modulates alot, especially in those modulating bridges and those development sections - but the keyboard parts from "Journey's Greatest Hits" all stay in the same key for the whole song. I think the other thing is that there are alot more ostinato bass patterns in modern piano music, as well as more verbatim repetitions of phrases (riffs). Oh - and the tempo and rhythm generally stay the same for a whole song.

Anyways - I'm going off the point - which is that you could definitely come up with a set of rules to identify one composer from another. You could do this purely using statistics - what percentage of time does Mozart use a 2 measure motif? Use sequencing? Use deceptive cadences? Use odd 2nd theme modulations (not I-V and not i-III). That kind if thing. If you do the same for Beethoven, Schubert, whoever - you could come up with a statistical "profile". Then for a new unknown work you would have to apply another program to determine which profile the unknown work was closest to.

I don't think that tempo and note length would be that useful tho, IMHO...that seems a little too universal a trait. But I don't know, I suppose it could be interesting. Beethoven definitely has more notes per work than Mozart...

(Also I can say with a high degree of certainty (since I am a software engineer by trade) that this is entirely possible, not very difficult, and probably already has been done for a university thesis.)

I'm not sure how this would apply towards defining whether a recording was music or not. My explanation using "common-usage" still seems to me to be the most accurate arbiter of that, I think.

4/2 Complete String Trios Program

[Ed C]

I don't know if Gregorian chant really has a discernible beat.

I have to admit I had to type in "Gregorian chant" into Youtube to check on that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlr90NLDp-0

There is definitely a discernable beat there. I'm tapping my foot right now....

[Ed C]

I once heard jingle bells done with "funny noises". It was tonal, rhythmic, and quite funny.

Yeah - that's music - has a beat.

OK - this is what I propose:

Anybody who is still not sure: make a list of works which you are not sure is music, and then I will repost your list with the works that are not music crossed out.

Haha - I'm just kidding of course - if YOU think it's music - IT IS. PERIOD. Eye of the beholder and all that.
(Just don't tell anybody)

4/2 Complete String Trios Program

[Sorrano]

Yeah - that's music - has a beat.

OK - this is what I propose:

Anybody who is still not sure: make a list of works which you are not sure is music, and then I will repost your list with the works that are not music crossed out.

Haha - I'm just kidding of course - if YOU think it's music - IT IS. PERIOD. Eye of the beholder and all that.
(Just don't tell anybody)

4/2 Complete String Trios Program

You cracked me up on that one!