What is 'not music' to you?

[some guy]

I said that sound is absent from Cage's composition, and then I said that sound is present in the concert hall.

No, that is not what you said. It has become increasingly clear that that is what you mean--what you maybe thought you were saying. It is not what you said.

I'm terribly sorry that I didn't spell out "in the concert hall" again for you, but then I thought I was dealing with adults who could read the entire conversation rather than lifting out a single sentence and treating it as if it just dropped from the sky.

I'm terribly sorry that you have decided to descend into insult in order to continue this conversation.

[Madiel]

I didn't literally say what YOU claimed I said, either, did I? Why should you get to add words "in Cage's composition" to the end of the sentence, but then I can't add "in the concert hall"? What kind of double standard is that?

I am irritated because you engaged in what seemed to me an incredibly childish tactic, rather than engaging with the substance of what I was saying. Come on, you knew perfectly well that I wasn't contradicting myself within a single sentence. But you chose to highlight words and say "that was easy". Then you chose to add extra words to the sentence that I never wrote.

If you don't want to agree with my position, fine, but don't go wilfully misrepresenting it. Don't go telling me I said things that I did not say. The text of what I actually said is right there on the screen, in front of everyone. I never wrote "sound is present in Cage's composition" because it's the exact opposite of the position I've been putting forward in every post.

[Madiel]

And I'm done here.

[some guy]

...some people think that sounds as they occur out there untouched is a creative art.

Once again, we have to deal with something other than the actual. Here, instead of dealing with what any actual people actually think, we are dealing with a distortion of the actual, presented by someone who does not like what the "some people" think.

Now, as one of those people, I am in the position of saying at the very least what I think. Not that either James or orfeo will be willing (or able) to deal with the actual. But "oh well."

Sounds as they occur only become actual (only become sounds) if there is an ear to hear the wave forms. An untouched sound is not something that even exists. Logically, it cannot exist. To be a sound, a wave has to have hit an eardrum, and since eardrums are connected to brains (the entirety of all such connections often being referred to as mind), there is already quite a lot of processing going on just in the simple, basic, and primary act of hearing.

And we're talking here about listening, which goes way beyond hearing and is arguably a different thing. I would argue it, anyway.

So there you have it. One of the "some people" James has referenced does not think that there is any such thing as an untouched sound, indeed that what makes a wave form into "sound" is exactly the touching. If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear, there is no sound. We can imagine the sound, because we're humans and we do that thing, some of us very well. But our imagined sound is not quite the same as the sound that we would actually hear if we were actually in the forest to transform the wave forms generated by the tree falling into the thing we call "sound."

I could go on to deal with the  "creative art" part of it, but maybe we could cover that later, hein?

Yes, sounds that are not designated do not count as part of the composition. Why? Because the alternative is saying something ridiculous like "oh yes, I love that cough in the 3rd movement". If you don't see the composition process as involving setting the sounds, setting the parameters, if you have no means of saying that music involves deciding what sounds to include, then you have no means of excluding the sounds that the composer didn't intend. That cough is part of Prokofiev's piano concerto. So is the ringing phone that an audience member forgot to turn off. The concept of "wrong notes" completely disappears.

I do not think that the concept of "wrong notes" is at all essential to the situation.

Anyway, the piece published by C.F. Peters does indeed set the parameters. It sets them quite plainly to include the sounds that are usually excluded and to exclude the sounds that are usually included. 4'33" is the means by which sounds that the composer did not intend are included. Similar to an unwritten out cadenza being the means by which sounds that the composer did not explicitly designate can be included.

One of them offers up control to a performer, the other offers up control to the listeners.

In no circumstance is it true that "the alternative is saying something ridiculous like 'oh yes, I love that cough in the 3rd movement'." I agree that that is a ridiculous remark. It completely disregards the situation at hand, however. You are of course at all times free to deprecate the situation, but not to make up inappropriate responses to it, especially if those responses are going to be presented as the only alternative.

[James]

Once again, we have to deal with something other than the actual. Here, instead of dealing with what any actual people actually think, we are dealing with a distortion of the actual, presented by someone who does not like what the "some people" think.

Now, as one of those people, I am in the position of saying at the very least what I think. Not that either James or orfeo will be willing (or able) to deal with the actual. But "oh well."

Sounds as they occur only become actual (only become sounds) if there is an ear to hear the wave forms. An untouched sound is not something that even exists. Logically, it cannot exist. To be a sound, a wave has to have hit an eardrum, and since eardrums are connected to brains (the entirety of all such connections often being referred to as mind), there is already quite a lot of processing going on just in the simple, basic, and primary act of hearing.

And we're talking here about listening, which goes way beyond hearing and is arguably a different thing. I would argue it, anyway.

So there you have it. One of the "some people" James has referenced does not think that there is any such thing as an untouched sound, indeed that what makes a wave form into "sound" is exactly the touching. If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear, there is no sound. We can imagine the sound, because we're humans and we do that thing, some of us very well. But our imagined sound is not quite the same as the sound that we would actually hear if we were actually in the forest to transform the wave forms generated by the tree falling into the thing we call "sound."

I could go on to deal with the  "creative art" part of it, but maybe we could cover that later, hein?
I do not think that the concept of "wrong notes" is at all essential to the situation.

Oh my god .. you need help man .. that is not what I mean by untouched. On a forum where we listen-to & discuss music and composition as a creative act you should have understood. Intentionally you do not, so that you can turn this into word play and a game of defining things.

"Sounds" as they occur in the natural world happen. Sound is always present, doesn't matter where you are or whether our ears can pick them up or not. Fact. Right now, as I sit here and type this, all over this globe there is lots of "sound" happening. We should be aware of this, most of us are. Where? Perhaps lost? How about traffic sounds, those are common & prevalent. Or even the sound of your central nervous system .. harder to pick up those frequencies, only under certain conditions.

Now, if we are there to listen to them. [pauses and listens] Computer is humming, faint sounds of traffic off in the distance, plane in the air. ... And we all have at some point - is this a creative act? If one person points it out to another or a group of people, is that a creative act? Is it music? is it performance? is it composition? Again, to a small group of people out there, those sounds, in and of themselves, untouched by creative human hands, but merely listened to as they happen incidentally .. qualifies as Art.

[starrynight]

Even field recordings can be edited together and manipulated, carefully selected and obviously even the placements/volume levels of the microphones are a choice too.

[Super Blood Moon]

My socks are not music to me.

[Karl Henning]

You don't wear the right socks.

[Super Blood Moon]

You don't wear the right socks.

I wear both the left and the right socks! 

[North Star]

I wear both the left and the right socks! 

You do realize that the idea is to wear them in different feet, right?

[Super Blood Moon]

You do realize that the idea is to wear them in different feet, right?

I wear them outside my feet!

[North Star]

I wear them outside my feet!

Even better!

[Madiel]

My socks are not music to me.

Over the years I've had piano keyboards and several different scores printed on socks.

[Monsieur Croche]

My socks are not music to me.

Darned right, they're knot!