What is music?

[JockSporran]

If visual art is putting across an idea in a visual way without having to actually look like like something, then perhaps it could be true of music, i.e. abstract music. Does music need to have a melody of notes that can be written down and copied? Could it not just be ANY sounds used to heighten an emotion? I can't play any instruments, but I like to make sounds on clock chimes, gongs, struck stringed instruments etc for my own relaxation. It's tuneless, but it's still music isn't it? Or is it? And if not, what's the difference?

[swedeheart]

That's an interesting question JockSporran. I'd love to make music too but haven't got the talent for it :-( My immediate response to your question would be something like whatever engages the same areas of the brain as "real" (traditional) music does might also be defined as music...

...but that still leaves us with the question of what "real" music is. Anyhoo, wanna form a band? I may not have a great sense of rhythm in the traditional sense... but I do great temporal cliffhangers

[JockSporran]

It would have to be a 'rag-tag' band, swede, made up of people playing jug, comb/tissue paper, pots, pans, washing board, etc. We could call ourselves Bootstring Orchestra or something like that :-)

[saxy_jag]

Yes, Jock, it is still music.

Western music does not have to have time or key signature or even a regular structure. Stravinsky comes to mind here.

And of course, there's non-Western music - Japanese, African, Indian etc. Much of it doesn't resemble the sound and rhythm patterns of what most of us think of as music, but it's still music nonetheless.

[Ankou]

you could argue what is music, in the same way that you argue what is art. its quite subjective.

the best definition i can think of is 'organised music' you could clang a tuneless beat on some scrap and think that it is rhythmic and percussive. i and others might think it sounds like a bag of nails in a washing machine and not music, but you and others think it is music.

[Whickerman]

Lou Reed's album Metal Machine Music is exactly that.