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

[eduardo_b]

which one is necassary for music to exist? the composer or the listener?
only the composer, the listener is merely an afterthought

So the composer doesn't need listeners, the painter doesn't need viewers, the author doesn't need readers? I would think most of these creators of art want and expect their work to be accessible to others. It seems an essential aspect of the impetus to create.

[vurt]

also, which one is necassary for music to exist? the composer or the listener?
only the composer, the listener is merely an afterthought

Does this means that the listener is a passive observer rather than an active participant?

in general terms yes.

but one can involve the listener to a certain extent. look at the flaming lips zaireeka as an example of listener involvement.
also you could try "active listening" for yourself, in recent times iv started listening to the radio for example through a rig of fx pedals, tweaking it here and there and being involved in the process of listening. looping stuff, slowing it, mixing it up and what not.
bastard pop!
mashups.

[robogone]

which one is necassary for music to exist? the composer or the listener?
only the composer, the listener is merely an afterthought

So the composer doesn't need listeners, the painter doesn't need viewers, the author doesn't need readers? I would think most of these creators of art want and expect their work to be accessible to others. It seems an essential aspect of the impetus to create.

I guess you're not a creator then.

[Meffy]

Right, time to settle this once and for all. This is THE answer.

Music is green with orange polka-dots. Noise is lovably spicy.

What? That's absurd? So is any attempt to define the difference IMO. I'd rather make either than try to define them, particularly if defining generates more (figurative) noise than music, more heat than light. :-}

[jopy]

For most of the categories, listeners can simply say they like or dislike what each category contains, but for some categories, which are outside this dominant mainstream of categories, the term music itself may be in dispute.

Why only outside of the dominant mainstream? There's no reason someone can't say "This isn't music" when listening to country and western if they hate it.

Anyone can say what they want. Period.

True, and many do. But some categories -- such as opera, jazz, chamber music, etc. -- are readily accepted as music by people who don't like these genres. For more experimental (as a general term) music, they don't just simply dislike it but now also don't consider it to actually be music.

to a certain extent I think that I agree with Eduardo here. Who really would say, "that performance, using guitars, drums, vocals playing easily recognized metric units, melodies, and harmonic structures" isn't music? One might well not like it, but I don't think someone would say "that's not music" at all unless they're trying to make a point.

Conversely, even though I like listening to something like Zyklus by Stockhausen, I really don't know if I think it's music. The problem I have is equating "music" with good and "not music" with bad. Something can be an audio experience, not be music, and still be worth hearing.

[vurt]

I'd rather make either than try to define them,

well, duh, of course.
but im currently on a mixdown of a 97 track piece 29 minute long, so all i have is time!

[Meffy]

But some categories -- such as opera, jazz, chamber music, etc. -- are readily accepted as music by people who don't like these genres. For more experimental (as a general term) music, they don't just simply dislike it but now also don't consider it to actually be music.

I once checked out from the public library a book [edit: writ by an actual musicographerologist, not just some git going on about the good old days] that quite seriously explained that bebop was NOT MUSIC but an abomination. Stephen Foster -- now that's real music.

Has anything changed since then except people's attitudes and opinions? Did the music change?

The difference is whatever you say it is. For you.

[robogone]

Bebop is a great example of what is considered music by some and non-music by others.

I'm thinking something similar happened with some of Stravinsky's works.

It's really not as cut and dried a distinction as many would like to think.

[whyterabbyt]

which one is necassary for music to exist? the composer or the listener?
only the composer, the listener is merely an afterthought

So the composer doesn't need listeners, the painter doesn't need viewers, the author doesn't need readers? I would think most of these creators of art want and expect their work to be accessible to others. It seems an essential aspect of the impetus to create.

We all get that you would think that. But just because you think something doesnt make it true.

edit : 2

[Doug1978-OLD]

Right, time to settle this once and for all. This is THE answer. Music is green with orange polka-dots. Noise is lovably spicy. What? That's absurd? So is any attempt to define the difference IMO.,

This makes good sense to me meffy, although may be it's best to take any spicy metaphors from a musc-y skunk with a pinch of salt?
(And breakfast pancakes are surely much tastier? )

[jancivil]

which one is necassary for music to exist? the composer or the listener?
only the composer, the listener is merely an afterthought

So the composer doesn't need listeners, the painter doesn't need viewers, the author doesn't need readers? I would think most of these creators of art want and expect their work to be accessible to others. It seems an essential aspect of the impetus to create.

Mine is made for me. That's the most honest way IME. I'd love for some people to hear it, but I do not require their approbation in the thing. "Accessible" doesn't inform my decision as to what to make. It's a compromised position to take as a basis. It isn't in any way "essential"; I would tend to agree with 'an afterthought'.
If I did my job right, the music will be appreciated by those with *enough information* (which is a very tiny sampling of the population). I'm extremely critical, and moreso with my own thing that I'd ever inflict on someone else. I don't do it to be popular or to get strokes. I do music I need to hear. Period. That's the *essential*.

If somebody's trying to get reimbursed, this *approval* can be a looming factor, and some second guessing might be in order.
But, that's "art" qua commerce and not art qua art.

[jancivil]

also, which one is necassary for music to exist? the composer or the listener?
only the composer, the listener is merely an afterthought

Does this means that the listener is a passive observer rather than an active participant?

in general terms yes.

but one can involve the listener to a certain extent.
also you could try "active listening"....

I think that the audience exists. I think that in live interactions, the audience can be involved on an energy level.

I think to gear things to meet criteria such as 'this crowd which gravitates to that bin in the stores' is a consideration you look at to sell some product. Not that there is anything wrong with doing that, as people have to make a living, and (in my unpopular opinion), it's better for an artist to make a living in the same field as the 'art'.


I'm no solipsist. But, if the target listener is somebody outside one's self, that's an inessential act; you've no identity at center.

[eduardo_b]

which one is necassary for music to exist? the composer or the listener?
only the composer, the listener is merely an afterthought

So the composer doesn't need listeners, the painter doesn't need viewers, the author doesn't need readers? I would think most of these creators of art want and expect their work to be accessible to others. It seems an essential aspect of the impetus to create.

I guess you're not a creator then.

I'm not saying one has to have an audience to be creative, but it's the interaction of creator and audience (which includes other creators and critics as well as consumers of art) that takes the art to it's ultimate level. As to whether the works are art...that would bring us back to music vs noise, etc.

[debra1rlo]

[edit: writ by an actual musicographerologist, not just some git going on about the good old days]

an important distinction

[debra1rlo]

i'm going to try interactive sculpting