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

[trimph1]

I'm just happy I didn't live in the apartment below him at the time of recording

Oh...that might not have been good!!

Speaking of which, I did live in NY around the really early 1970's. Some of those loft units were huge.

[Numanoid]

He recorded by getting the input feedback to continue to tickle the guitar strings, the speakers playing the guitar, sort of a perpetum mobile, something like that.

It all sound very interesting on paper, but for those living in the vincity, I'm not sure.

[aciddose]

Artistic works.

That's all well and good, until you can define what an "artistic work" is this is all useless.

I have defined it in a clear, objective way. We can place limits upon the specifics of the concrete forms of expression / creativity and categorize. For example music, imagery, architectural works and so on all fall under the categories you've listed.

What you fail to do is answer my question: what is the difference between a work considered music, a pianist "tapping on some keys" vs. a baby smacking a toy along the rails in a crib?

Let's define this.

[metamorphosis]

what is the difference between a work considered music, a pianist "tapping on some keys" vs. a baby smacking a toy along the rails in a crib?

The focus and intent of listener.
m@

[Kevin Deas]

Let's not.

[trimph1]

Let's not.

Yep. That way lies torture and suffering...

[aciddose]

I tried to find a piece I heard years ago called something like "The impressionist expressionist - sounds of a train station" played solo on piano.

Absolutely zero melody, all about timbre and rhythm.

Anyway only the first minute of this video is really important to make my basic point. How the hell are you going to distinguish this process following rules picked at random combined with an algorithm from "real music" ?

The fact is you can't. Neither can anyone else, that is why it is real music and it is eligible for copyright. Not just the recording, but the composition (if it exists) the ruleset, the algorithm and the performance!

I couldn't find the train station piece because the internet is populated by frothy retards and if you type in anything related like "piano train" you get a lot of train horns and other nonsense.

[vurt]

my monkey said screw you all, its banana time!
sadly we have no bananas.

[aciddose]

That I can find:

[Kevin Deas]

I tried to find a piece I heard years ago called something like "The impressionist expressionist - sounds of a train station" played solo on piano.

Absolutely zero melody, all about timbre and rhythm.

Anyway only the first minute of this video is really important to make my basic point. How the hell are you going to distinguish this process following rules picked at random combined with an algorithm from "real music" ?

The fact is you can't. Neither can anyone else, that is why it is real music and it is eligible for copyright. Not just the recording, but the composition (if it exists) the ruleset, the algorithm and the performance!

I couldn't find the train station piece because the internet is populated by frothy retards and if you type in anything related like "piano train" you get a lot of train horns and other nonsense.

You're preaching to the choir! The trick is getting us "frothy retards" to understand!

[crazyfiltertweaker]

easy answer:

if you have a order of harmonic sounds like a note and note patterns which sound nice because they have some nice harmonies, it is a pleasure because we as human like to find order in the chaos. every pattern we can see with our senses is a pleasure for the human. noise is neutral, but if you mix noise with harmony like in rock and some kind of techno, everybody is happy if chaos seems to have harmony or if some harmony comes out the chaos. thats why some orchestral music uses some random percussions to create this chaos.

[whyterabbyt]

Artistic works.

That's all well and good, until you can define what an "artistic work" is this is all useless.

Wow, after me being very clear that the law specifically defines all of its terms, you make the obvious and pointlessly redundant attempt to claim that the term needs a definition.

Clue : its defined. clearly. in the law. like i told you. and it specifically refers to real-world concrete things. objects. items. stuff. like i said.

seriously, its not hard to follow.

I have defined it in a clear, objective way.

Your definition counts for nothing. We're not talking aciddose-land here, we're talking about the law, and its already defined.

We can place limits upon the specifics of the concrete forms of expression / creativity and categorize. For example music, imagery, architectural works and so on all fall under the categories you've listed.

Thank you for pointlessly reiterating something I just told you.

What you fail to do is answer my question: what is the difference between a work considered music, a pianist "tapping on some keys" vs. a baby smacking a toy along the rails in a crib?
Let's define this.

I didnt 'fail' to do anything. Im not here to respond to every misbegotten 'answer this irrelevant question or I win' nonsense you come up with.

Your premise (that something is music because it is copyrightable) confuses cause and effect, and the whole introduction of copyright to the definition of noise vs music is a red herring. That's the only thing that needs 'answering' here.

[aciddose]

You seem confused about what the purpose of copyright is. It has nothing to do with music other than by the fact it was defined in such a way as to encompass all works of art regardless of medium.

All works are considered music if they meet the definitions pertaining to the medium. You have to look at things from the abstract "art" to the slightly more concrete "music" and ignore the wholly concrete in order to understand this.

You seem to be concerned with whether music is good or not, whether it is considered subjectively "noise" or not. This is as you have admitted yourself a wholly subjective issue and so can not be defined objectively. It can not be agreed upon!

I'm here pointing out the simple fact that this is all long settled by our society. There have been great minds dedicated to understanding the subjective difference between music and noise and they have come up with conclusive, objective definitions in the abstract.

I feel often like I'm talking to a schizophrenic who can't deal in anything other than the concrete.

[aciddose]

easy answer:

if you have a order of harmonic sounds like a note and note patterns which sound nice because they have some nice harmonies, it is a pleasure because we as human like to find order in the chaos. every pattern we can see with our senses is a pleasure for the human. noise is neutral, but if you mix noise with harmony like in rock and some kind of techno, everybody is happy if chaos seems to have harmony or if some harmony comes out the chaos. thats why some orchestral music uses some random percussions to create this chaos.

I'm not sure if you're posting this after watching the video I linked, which does cover the topic quite well, or based upon your own thoughts on the matter. If you haven't seen the video it is a bit oddly produced and not really structured like a lecture but nonetheless quite effective in covering a number of related topics.

The thing I'd note about your mention of "nice harmonies" vs. "noise" regarding "order in chaos" is that there is no distinction between noise and harmony and chaos when you take into account some of the things explained in the video.

Understanding what "noise" actually is in this physical reality and not being limited to the common understanding of "random" as "impossible to predict"; In other words understanding that everything in our universe is reversible and therefore everything encodes information about its history you should see this as obvious and intuitive.

If we take a step back and "zoom out" of the process where we are picking notes and ordering them into a 12 tone sequence, this appears as identical to the process by which "noise" is produced.

Yet it isn't noise, it is music.

Why? Merely because a human being was used to sum the inputs to produce the data and rule-set.

[aciddose]

A further description of what "noise" really means:

Take for example a crowd of people moving through a mall or other large facility where individual goals and motivations are unique (information/history) while the structures they are faced with are the same.

People will move through the crowds in a manner that is identical to the way in which "noise" is generated in a reverse "avalanche" junction or water flowing between cobbles in a stream.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_generator

This "noise" is not random at all but entirely deterministic, entirely based upon the information encoded by each particle as it interacts with other particles and the structure it flows through.

What makes it random is not the structure or the particles themselves but the combination of all the bits of information encoded by each element resulting in an information "product" rather than a simple sum.

So in other words, if we simply take all the particles and the system this is like summing/adding them all up. If we allow them to interact however this is like multiplication.

If we look at the structure in terms of a system or rule-set you should begin to see how this matches the composition process, for any medium.

In music we are forced to follow the structures imposed upon us by the practical limits of our tonal system or instruments.

So, in this way it becomes obvious that the results of this sort of "stochastic process" are emergent and very much made up of the influences of noise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_process

So it is in fact must more difficult to differentiate music from noise than it may seem. Music is just noise on a particular scale.