What is the difference between music and noise? [years-dead slappyfight revived]

[tomg]

Exactly. You can stick the box up to your ear and hear noise. I guess someone who was stretching might think that was Van Halen instead of blood rushing around in their ears. People are people after all.

Jut my 2c...

OTOH My dad once told me I listened to noise and I said "yeah but it's very well done".

[tomg]

Oh... BTW don't really care just wanted to put in my 2c.. Carry on..

[eduardo_b]

Oh... BTW don't really care just wanted to put in my 2c.. Carry on..

Not as if anyone will solve the noise vs music thing anyway. It defies definition, doesn't it. Carry on indeed.

[debra1rlo]

While the box is still unopened, it contains noise. As soon as it is opened, the Waves function collapses and what is inside is either the Grateful Dead or Ableton Live.

[TiUser]

Not as if anyone will solve the noise vs music thing anyway. It defies definition, doesn't it. Carry on indeed.

The problem is that our brain can separate these two terms by it's ability to use unsharp linguistic rules without our conscience. This is indeed hard to wrap into something we usually call a definition.

Just a simple example: define "red"... Whatever you try it will fail! Definitions have to be somehow exact, logical, maybe scientific - but language does not work that way. Fortunately it does not because it would make it impossible to find something new in something existing... because an exact definition would forbid this - instantly requiring a new term.

That's probably the reason why exact sciences are so difficult to understand...

Finally all that makes this discussion so wonderful...

[whyterabbyt]

Just a simple example: define "red"...

light with a wavelength between 630 and 740nm.

[Meffy]

Red is easy. Not so simple to define "violet" in a way that fits everyone. Due to an eye lens abnormality, the wavelengths you see as violet probably don't match the wavelengths I see.

[bebop]

signature :o

[Rangtangtang]

to some poeple any sound is noise and to others its music

[vurt]

Exactly. You can stick the box up to your ear and hear noise. I guess someone who was stretching might think that was Van Halen instead of blood rushing around in their ears. People are people after all.

except, it isnt.
its the trapped air circulating, resonating and generally being air, which as any acoustics professional will tell you, is how we hear sound in general

[TiUser]

Red is easy. Not so simple to define "violet" in a way that fits everyone. Due to an eye lens abnormality, the wavelengths you see as violet probably don't match the wavelengths I see.

If it's easy, please present this genius definition - I am curious...

The problem with wavelength is that it does not take perception and each individuals feel about color into consideration - it's just technical.

"Violet" is a good technical example as one of the color associated with it looks like colorimetric "blue" while most would call colorimetric "cyan" as blue in everyday life...

Yes, it's easy to define colors - and no one knows what it exactly is... like the term music.

Did you know the color names are culture dependent and eskimos have something like 26 names for different shades of white?... and I am sure they can also distinguish these... and how funny that "white" isn't a true color in science at all... I see many parallels to the term "music" again.

Most of us intuitively know what color is about - but again it's not easy in any way... language can serve us in a way science can't.


Maybe I should come back to a music question now and ask what a "blue" note is...

[Ogg Vorbis]

The problem with wavelength is that it does not take perception and each individuals feel about color into consideration - it's just technical.

Just technical? Wait, so the definition of the standardized pitch A as 440 Hz. is a bad definition because it doesn't take perception and each individual's feel about pitch into account?

[elmer fudd] You awe a waskawwy won, awan't woo? [/elmer fudd]

[TiUser]

The problem with wavelength is that it does not take perception and each individuals feel about color into consideration - it's just technical.

Just technical? Wait, so the definition of the standardized pitch A as 440 Hz. is a bad definition because it doesn't take perception and each individual's feel about pitch into account?

[elmer fudd] You awe a waskawwy won, awan't woo? [/elmer fudd]

First this definition is not bad - it's just technical.

You assign a frequency to a tone name. That's the same as assigning a wavelength to a color name. But what does this mean - language wise? A tone "A" does mean some perception reference as "red" for a visual perception. This works even for people who do not know anything about frequency or photon wavelengths...

Second why do you think tuning can be shifted away from 440Hz... because this technical definition means so much musically. Do you think this shift would make the musical term "A" unusable? But technically the definition would be spoiled...

It's similar with other musical terms. The technical definitions often do not really help - because they are precise...

[jonnyG]

16 pages. Not bad.

Umm... How about "All music is noise*, but not all noise is music, depending on your point of view. Or not. Possibly."?

*apart from 4:33, obviously.

[jonnyG]

I've created a handy Venn diagram using the wonders of Microsoft paint...



God, I'm bored here!