Music or Not

[F Horn of Valere]

Okay, so going back to the 1812 overture - if you were to hear gunfire at a rifle range, you'd think that was just noise. However, when Tchaikovsky calls for cannon in his piece, then that same sound becomes musically significant. What Cage did in 4'33" isn't much different. He said, "hey, take all of this sound that isn't music, and then treat it as if it were." He can take credit for that idea. He's not taking credit for the sounds themselves.

 

 

There is a big difference between going into a bar and recording the ambient noise, versus going into a bar and asking everyone to clink their glass at the same time. He can take credit for rifles and canons because the asked them to make the noise.

 

Also, for clarification, no one here said that more rhythm makes better music; one whole note can make a piece, albeit a crappy one.

 

 

Ehh.

 

I think you're replying to the point that I made about the rate of notes being played per minute (ie. sheer technical skill on display) being a good way to judge the worth of music. That was in reply to Cloud's 12th post about judging music by the skill displayed, which seemed to suggest that because the performer does not use pianistic (or whatever instrument) technique, that it is not music. I used the measure of 'notes per minute' because I wanted to talk about virtuosity on display. Rhythm, which is the term you use, isn't the same thing - it is the temporal relationship between notes, measured in purely relative terms. A piece with one note is arguably not rhythmic, anyway; I've heard at least one piece of music that features a final movement that consists of only one note, which worked quite well in context. Don't make blanket statements.

 

 

I define rhythm as the use of silence to enhance sound. A whole note has extremely limited use of rhythm when it is cut off before the following measure. And I'll use that blanket statement if I want! It is my right to hold the opinion that an entire piece made of one note, while superior to 4'33", makes for a crappy piece. That argument, however, is unrelated to your example of the use of a whole note in a final movement. I will admit that the context could make a whole note movement rather deep, and I might even enjoy it. The difference is that a piece allows surrounding context to develop, while a whole not composing an entire piece, not just one movement, has no such context.

[BFG]

I remember studying this for music, way back when...

 

I think our consensus ended up being that sound was music when intended to be music by the composer. That was straight-forward (as in about 15 minutes of the class) - we ran over because we couldn't decide if sounds that the composer had no way of making could ever be intentioned by the composer. For example when we were listening to 4 33 we heard four lorries go by. The composer intended for us to hear 'music', but the lorry drivers were just making noise.

 

I think I tend to agree with Valere - it can't be music without sound, and the composer can't take credit for what you hear when listening as it's out of his control. It is probably an excellent meditative piece, in teh way that listening to the sea/ocean can be meditative, but that's not music either, it's just a soothing sound.

 

Okay, so going back to the 1812 overture - if you were to hear gunfire at a rifle range, you'd think that was just noise. However, when Tchaikovsky calls for cannon in his piece, then that same sound becomes musically significant. What Cage did in 4'33" isn't much different. He said, "hey, take all of this sound that isn't music, and then treat it as if it were." He can take credit for that idea. He's not taking credit for the sounds themselves.

 

No, but I'm not trying to argue that noise can't be music. Tchaikovsky intends for the cannon to be part of the music. At the rifle range they don't and that's teh difference. If Cage had recorded ambient noise to play during the 4'33 '' then he could take credit for it, as it's an action he's done. The fact remains that when a lorry drives past it's noise, if somebody records it to play during a piece of music than it becomes music.

 

Cage came up with a philosophical experiment, an interesting debate and arguable a good meditative piece, but it's not music.