What's to be and what's not to be considered as Music?"

[Parsifal]

And again somebody draws me off the topic!

Well, a few words:

Can you undertake a bit of thinking?

You've got a serious mathematical problem to solve.
Who will you take it to? - To the best maths student in your group? He may not be strong enough. To the best maths student in your stream, ... in your University?
Or to the average student, of who by the way majority is made?
It depends on what kind of creature you are and what you want - to solve it successfully or to aggravate the state of things.

The same situation with democracy here and there and everywhere, since majority is average, under-educated, under-informed, under-intelligent and so on - for taking decisions on serious, complicated questions.

Fine, except governing is not a technical problem with a well defined solution, and you ignore the question of who is to decide who is most qualified and should govern. 

[The new erato]

Well it's not the over-educated, over-informed, over-intelligent and so on that floats to the top in non-democracies, but those with the strongest will to power, the most disregard for other people, and strongest ambitions, in fact occasionally not unlike in democracies. The difference are that in non-democracies once they are at the top; they stay there. In democracies we get rid of our idiots. While you are stuck with them, we get a second chance.

[Alexander_Bystrow]

Fine, except governing is not a technical problem with a well defined solution, and you ignore the question of who is to decide who is most qualified and should govern.

I quite agree.

And who exactly governs the zombifying mass media.

[Karl Henning]

There's the potential for a whole string of spin-off threads here. Like:

What's to be and what's not to be considered as an opinion?

What's to be and what's not to be considered as an argument?

Mouth-watering stuff.

What's your opinion?

[Karl Henning]

Alexander, I have been trying to follow your argument so help me here please. 

Is what you are saying, atonal "music" isn't music because there is no melody?

If that is what he is saying, he is fundamentally mistaken. There is plenty of atonal music (no scare-quotes) with melody.

[Karl Henning]

2. Meanwhile you yourself did not provide any counter-arguments, just a dislike.

You are mistaken, again. Nothing I have posted in this thread has anything to do with my likes or dislikes.

[Parsifal]

I quite agree.

And who exactly governs the zombifying mass media.

There is no such thing as the "zombifying mass media."  There are news outlets that cater to people who can't be bothered and just want fluff or who only want to see "news" that reinforces their prejudices and there are news outlets that provide very high quality coverage.  Living in an environment where the government controls the access to information is a much more serious problem.

I see you evaded the question of who decides who governs. 

[Alexander_Bystrow]

Alexander, I have been trying to follow your argument so help me here please. 

Is what you are saying, atonal "music" isn't music because there is no melody?  If so I get that, but to deny it is music is wrong, its not enjoyable to me, the lack of clear melody or lack of apparent intent to convey any message makes it ultimately pointless in my opinion, but its still music to someone, it's been crafted, regardless of mine or your dislike.

Jut1972, as far as I understand the point,
there is Music
and
there is just Sound compilation (theatre of sounds, drawing or painting with sounds).

Melody is the Heart of music and to provide a melody we need a very good ordering of sounds - both properly ordered tone row (tonality) and proper organisation of sounds in the melody itself. The gist is Order. Melody provides organismic quality to the composition. You can't divide an organism without loosing the quality of a whole. You can't play such a piece, say, from the end.

Disordered or under-ordered combinations of sounds lack sense greatly (I do not say absolutely). As summations, they can be divided - you just get 2 summations (If you divide the content of a litter-basket, you'll get 2 litter-baskets). Disordered compilations can easily be written in kilometres. And they can easily be played from the middle, from the end and so on without (much) damage or even may sound better.
This is definitely not music, but the authors of it (being unable to do melodic work, but being ambitious) are still eager to look like real composers and be famous. So they call their disordered just sound compilations music.

We should be clever enough about this wrong use of words (or even manipulation with words).

[Mirror Image]

Looks like you guys are just feeding the troll at this juncture. Nothing more to see here folks. Move along, move along...

[Alexander_Bystrow]

Looks like you guys are just feeding the troll at this juncture. Nothing more to see here folks. Move along, move along...

Yeah. Something makes this Mister nervous.

[Karl Henning]

Yeah. Something makes this Mister nervous.

Well, it's a fine sense of feeling, that you're worried about his being nervous.

I don't think you're any more of a troll than Sean is....

[Cato]

Jut1972, as far as I understand the point,
there is Music
and
there is just Sound compilation (theatre of sounds, drawing or painting with sounds).

Melody is the Heart of music and to provide a melody we need a very good ordering of sounds - both properly ordered tone row (tonality) and proper organisation of sounds in the melody itself. ...

Disordered or under-ordered combinations of sounds lack sense greatly (I do not say absolutely). As summations, they can be divided - you just get 2 summations (If you divide the content of a litter-basket, you'll get 2 litter-baskets). Disordered compilations can easily be written in kilometres. And they can easily be played from the middle, from the end and so on without (much) damage or even may sound better.

This is definitely not music, but the authors of it (being unable to do melodic work, but being ambitious) are still eager to look like real composers and be famous. So they call their disordered just sound compilations music.

We should be clever enough about this wrong use of words (or even manipulation with words).

Allow me to repeat my questions:

Quote from: Alexander_Bystrow on Today at 02:23:58 PM

    Well, thank you for your attention and questions!

    Unpitched compositions, definitely, can't be music in any way!

    Music can be made out of musical sounds, consequently, the pitched ones.


    Unpitched sounds can be added as very-very secondary means.

Then, according to this idea, composers who have used cymbals, tam-tams, wood blocks, hammers, a gran casa, and any other "unpitched" sounds, are expressing "very very secondary" "senses" or "thoughts."

Why on earth would they ever bother to express such trivial "senses" or "thoughts" ?


Quote from: Alexander_Bystrow on July 28, 2013, 02:55:14 PM

Tonality provides the sound row with order, structure. That's what we need to build melodies.

Therefore, Penderecki's massive rows and lines of disorderly sounds in e.g. Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima are simply a "theater of sounds" expressing nothing, no sense, no thoughts, and audiences are mystified about how these sounds are connected to the title.   

Except that such is not the case!  Many listeners will tell you they hear bombs dropping and airplane engines and people scrambling and that the disorder of the sounds expresses both "sense" and "thought."  Others might say they hear pain and anguish in the soundscape.

And can you choose a melody from a composition that you like and tell us which "thoughts" are expressed by it?  Perhaps that would clarify the discussion!

[Mirror Image]

Who's more successful in this topic?
The troll or those trolling the troll?
Or is the trolling of the troll the desire of the troll?

Only the troll will know...

[Alexander_Bystrow]

Allow me to repeat my questions:

I remember this post of yours. I'll try to answer them a bit later.

[Alexander_Bystrow]

I see you evaded the question of who decides who governs.

I've read something by Nikolai Levashov recently. It is in Russian, but one of his books - The Final Appeal to Mankind - has been translated into English. I think you can find it here -
http://levashov.info/English/books-eng.html

He lived in the US for about 16 years.

[Alexander_Bystrow]

Should have stuck to your shtick.

I see you have never been to the point here. Not once.
Perhaps you'd better change the thread?

[The new erato]

You are referring to the faith healer and parapsychologist who claims to have discovered a unified field theory? Hehe. In that case I rest my case with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

[Elgarian]

What's your opinion?

Oh Karl, if only I knew. All I can offer is an opinion about my opinion. Philosophy is so darned hard sometimes.

[Karl Henning]

Oh Karl, if only I knew. All I can offer is an opinion about my opinion. Philosophy is so darned hard sometimes.

Aye, like that curious idea of artistic discipline having a heart, which seems pretty and poetic, but which here seems to me a nice wallpapering over the dogmatic assertion that "music without this element (as I define it) isn't really music."

I'm not sure if the way something seems to me, is an opinion. Still mulling.

[Elgarian]

Aye, like that curious idea of artistic discipline having a heart, which seems pretty and poetic, but which here seems to me a nice wallpapering over the dogmatic assertion that "music without this element (as I define it) isn't really music."

I'm not sure if the way something seems to me, is an opinion. Still mulling.

Of course I've mostly been just messing about, but what else can one do when the whole of this thread (and indeed of many discussions about life) is a confusion of misunderstandings about the definitions of words and about the metaphorical nature of the expressions we use. As you point out, we can discuss endlessly whether a dog with a missing leg is really a dog; but we can still pat it, whatever we decide to call it.