After considering all the discussions and asking a few professors what they thought about the definition, I made a few other changes and have written a paper over the development of this definition. It is somewhat lengthy, but if you would read it, I would appreciate any likes, dislikes, editions, and ideas about the definition and the paper. I am also considering, writing a few example definitions and stating why they are not complete. The only reason why I am hesitant about doing that is because I feel that if I do that, I have gone to a more defensive stand point that takes purpose away from our definition. Anyway, suggestions are greatly appreciated.

As a result of a detailed conversation with an ethnomusicologist, I've recently re-read most of this message board, and I would like to reflect on a few arguments that are stil more or less unresolved:

Is Music universal?
Is Music a language?

I sincerely believe that the two of these go hand in hand, and the explanations to both answers will perhaps offer a better understanding of these questions...

Allow me to answer the questions, and then offer an explanation.

Any given exampe of music is not universal, but the general fundamentals of what IS music makes music universal in all cultures.

Music is not a language. Rather, music when intended to express uses a variety of "languages" in doing so.

My thoughts are as follows:

The entire problem for defining music is that what is considered music is subjective. As people have grown up in different cultures, they are exposed to different things. Pop music, for example, relies on the suspension, and it will often not resolve! do you realize how upset our traditional tonalists would be in this situation? At the same time, consider the performance of tonal music in a culture that thrives with modal music. Or twelve tone music at its introduction.

In each case, a style of music that is accepted by a large amount of people would not be seen as music in that setting. The reason for this? If people cannot understand the tools used to create the said piece of music, then it's very likely that it will not be seen as "music", or at least music that fails to communicate with that individual. No given piece of music can be acknowledged as music by every cultural standard. This is why I say any given piece of music is not universal.

With that being said, I think that the system of Music, or "music" (as we are trying to define it), IS universal. There does not exist a culture who did not have some form (even primitive) of music in their society. For that, the concept of music is universal, despite that no actual production of what could be considered music is in itself universal.

Secondly, I argue that music is not a language. A language is something that is created by a society or culture to communicate. Because "music" is universal, music can not be language. Does this make sense? However, consider any given piece of music. Why does this composition hold significance in some cultures but not in others? My theory is this: musical form, the addition of lyrics, tonality, sequences, modal settings, and other pertinent things, are all parts of a language that a composer utilizes to make music accessible.

Tonality, Tone Row, Mode, Sequences, etc., are all languages that a composer can write in. Those who "know the language" can recognize this form of music. The musical language is acquired through culture and academia. This explains why music majors, or those heavily involved with music, understand more forms of music other than "Western" music, etc. The more languages a person knows, the more music he will be able to appreciate. However, this does not music a language. Rather, it only emphasizes that elements used to create music themselves are a type of language.

Although we learn "musical languages" through culture and academia, I think part of what makes music "universal" are some archetypal elements existent in all music.

Contour
Rhythm
Imitation

consider these three things. There is not a single form of "music" that does not acknowledge these three traits, even in their most primitive form. Cavemen hitting rocks, imitating each other implies imitation (which could include repetition), and contour on some level. I prefer to reserve the term "melodic" for tonal music, but I firmly believe that these three elements are existent in all things that are considered music. It is in how the listener percieves these archetypal elements, in addition to musical language, that justifies what is and what is not music to each individual.

With those several mouthfuls being said, I think this helps put another perspective into how we can define music. I am considering a new revised form of a concise definition, very similar to what Jake last posted, but perhaps adding the idea of archetypal elements, and such.

Questions, comments, complaints?

~Adam

Here's sometheing almost completely unrelated. It correlates in a wierd way though. Earlier in the week I wound up on separate occasions in an art gallery for an exhibition called "Mexico Illuminated/Illuminado". That's not important. There was an installation there called 'Killing Time' (which was about the Mexican Navy and how it's largly ceremonial, and some feel it is a waste of money). Anywho, it included some video of the Navy doing things like walking around, polishing the floor, and other trivial things like stacking chairs. In these videos the footage was slowed down and you could hear sounds that go along with being near ports/piers/water etc, and the bells on ships. Anyhow, for the class I was in we were analyzing the installation piece by piece and for some reason I asked, "Does the music go with this exhibit? or the other one?" since there were a few installations near each other all running video, and it was hard to tell. No one was paying attention to the background noise on the videos (myself included) and why I asked I didn't even know. What I'm eventually getting at is that without even thinking about it I called this music. Nothing really occurred to me until everyone was kind of like 'what?' after I asked the question. Not because they thought I had 'mislabeled' the 'sound' but because they hadn't noticed it at all before the question. It did make me think though why did i just call that music? It actually made me think of this thread (yeah that's pretty sad, but oh well). Thinking about it, it's not 'music' (or maybe it is...), it's just 'sea sounds" and 'noise' but I called it music. Maybe it's because it was slowed down and that distorted it. Maybe it was because it was on a loop and it seemed repititious. Maybe because it coming from a video source, or other visual media, you're just used to all background noise being music. Since things in a visual (tv/video/film) context are generally scored or accompanied by some type of generally accepted 'music'. So maybe that was really random, sorry if that goes way off topic from your last post, but it made me remember that and I thought I might share that experience.

maybe not - you herad repetition and rhythm in that background, right? Perhaps it was the archetypal primitive musician in you ;-). I think it does hold correlation. I think when people hear sounds in nature that resemble countour (in a 'melodic' sense), imitation, and rhythmn, they primitively, or subconsciously identify some "musicality" to these sounds....i think that there is something subconscious, and wholly instinctive, within the human mind/body that establishes music from noise. We as humans, with comprehension, extend beyond the primitive basics. However, that does not mean that we exist with out them.

Interesting stuff, indeed.

With all this said, i'd like to post now an idea for a revised form of the definition. The definition itself is very concise, stays within the limits we've defined for some time, and allows for some corollaries to follow. The corollaries define the diffrent parts that comprise the world of music, all based off of the principle definition of what music is. Can't decide if I like elements or standards better...

Music is the authentic or implied sound/silence that is interpreted by a listener as organized to serve a purpose. This interpretation of organization is based on cultural, academic, and archetypal elements/standards, varying in structure and in complication.

Corollary Number One:

The attempt to organize sounds/silence in a way to be perceived as music is the art of creating music.

Corollary Number Two:

A music system is an organized way to notate music.

Corollary Number Three:

The attempt to notate a series of sounds/silence for music to be created is the art of composition.

Corollary Number Four:

The various styles of composing can be grouped into systems of music, known as musical languages.

Corollary Number Five:

A Musical language is a general set of cultural elements that influence the creation of certain genres of music.



How does all of this stand in defining music very specifically, yet allowing freedom for interpretation of what "is" and what "isn't" music to the listener? Also, I've considered listing the archetypal elements, but I think the definition would be weaker with them.

Comments?

"To be ignorant of other languages, is to be ignorant of your own" Anonymous

It was a quote on a poster in my german class; debate about why that may have signifigance to this thread.

I spent the weekend in Houston with the UT Longhorn Band, and I tried considering the quote you mentioned, Thor.

I couldn't come up with any substantial meaning to the quote. Because we are not omniscient, we are going to be ignorant of things to some degree. There will be cultures and langauges which we will spend our lives completely ignorant to. However, perhaps by understanding another culture, it's processes, origins, and customs, you can better understand yours through apprecation and a braoder sense of the world. The corollary to becoming more educated about your own culture as you study others would be ignorance and lack of education.

However, I'm not sure how this would apply to music. The only thing I could suggest is that on an academic level, the study of genres of music that aren't associated with our culture help us realize the significant strengths and weaknesses of the musical "language" we strongly associate with. However, I don't know that I would call a person ignorant about the tonal language simply because he's never heard Organum.

So to answer your question, Thor, I don't know what significance that would hold.

~Adam

I was kind of thinking along the ways of having influences from everywhere....kind of.

I don't know exactly how I thought it might fit it, but when I saw it, I thought of how you have to be well rounded in everything you do. You don't want to be one-sided - you have to expand your knowledge.

WHich is why it's good to learn not just field percussion (tenors, basses, snares) but also to learn marimba, conga, etc.

For example (from the quote I used) after I started taking German, I understood better the signifigance of the different cases, and the origins of some of our words.

So in a sence, you have to study other forms of music to really understand a particular one.

its sounds to le like this was his home work for a music appreciation class and got off easy by posting it

The only kind of music class I'm taking is band, and we definitly don't have any sort of homework at all (except praticing).

I just wanted to get people to think about something.