Is Music Really Universal?

[fmr]

But then again, a lot of Asian pop is really trying hard to sound more American than some Americans

Pop, rap, hip-hop... even rock, maybe. These styles are not representative of each country's culture. You need to listen to their folk (ethnic) music to understand what's about and what are their roots. And instrumental music. When you leave words out of the picture, music will then really stands as an universal language, where each one still shows his/her roots, but the language is understood by anyone else.

Pop and derivatives are just a sub-product of the american colonized urban sub-culture.

I don't agree. Otherwise, the only U.S. music to listen to if you want to understand America would be southern "country" and nothing else. Music styles (pop, rock, jazz, blues, trance, etc.) are international. It is true that 99% of songs around the world come from U.S. (because of post war cultural domination). This however does not mean pop-rock songs from other countries are sub-products or derivative. They are infact as original as the U.S. products. Only, if they are not famous in America first (after being translated into American language), they are totally ignored by the rest of the world. It is so called "American Imperialism". See "Gangamgan style" (or whatever it was called), one of the million shitty songs around the world. Once it became popular in America, the rest of the world started to sing it and the singer had even to apologize on American TVs for his anti-americanism

Either I am reading it wrong, or in the end you are agreeing with me (kind of)

"This however does not mean pop-rock songs from other countries are sub-products or derivative. They are infact as original as the U.S. products." This is something we agree on - but with different meanings

[fluffy_little_something]

Music is universal in that all people like some sort of music. But beyond that music is of course not universal at all. I dislike 99.9% of music, for instance Chinese, Indian, most folklore music from around the globe etc., but also most genres from the West.

Actually, musical taste is so specific that it can serve as a general compatibility indicator for potential couples.

[nineofkings]

Very few people would have considered this music before the 20th century:

If you accept that premise, which seems to be true, then music must be culturally defined. It's not universal, because what is and isn't considered music can change over time, if people decide that that definition has changed.

[emcee]

Stuck in traffic this morning so had some thinking time.
We Westerners (probably the majority of KVR'ers) look at music with what we see (well, hear). Turn on the radio, walk into a cafe, go through our music collections. That's our view of the world and it's music. Pick a non western country - let's say hrmm Khazikstan (sorry Borat) - let's venture out of the capital city and into the heartland of that country (or China, India, Sudan, Tonga) where the country's more traditional instruments are the norm - the Guqin, Sitar, Hoddu and the Pate.. If you were to walk down the local market there, what would you hear? Music. And if we walk down that market with ghetto blaster on shoulder, blasting out Calvin Harris/Justin Timberlake/Gaga/Bieber/DNCE/Sia etc etc etc, then what would they think of our tunes? It'd be as foreign to them as theirs to us, but it's still music. It's a universal language. Maybe with the exception of the beebs.
Similar to spoken language. I can't understand much German but I can get the gist of it through the delivery and infliction of words, some that sound similar. Enough to know if someone is telling me to f**k off or that my hair looks nice today.
And then the traffic improved.

[fmr]

Very few people would have considered this music before the 20th century:

If you accept that premise, which seems to be true, then music must be culturally defined. It's not universal, because what is and isn't considered music can change over time, if people decide that that definition has changed.

People can like or dislike it... but I think anyone, anywhere, we listen to it as music, even if they find it strange or disagreable. If not for anything else, because it is played in a piano

We may find the indonesian gamelan, or the chinese ensembles strange, but we perceive them as music. The same may be said regarding the african drumming and singing. Or the indian ragas, or even the tibetan bells and flutes. And I believe they will listen to our music (pure music) with the same strangeness, but still perceive it as music.

[emcee]

We may find the indonesian gamelan, or the chinese ensembles strange, but we perceive them as music. The same may be said regarding the african drumming and singing. Or the indian ragas, or even the tibetan bells and flutes. And I believe they will listen to our music (pure music) with the same strangeness, but still perceive it as music.

+1 - more or less what I was trying to say..
<insert popular music artist here> to us translates to weird noise to that Zambian Goat Herder listening to well, whatever Zambian Goat Herder's listen to on their iPod - but it's still music. Or as Billy said;

Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound
Funny, but it's still rock and roll to me

[tapper mike]

I'm showing my age.

Last night we were allowed to have a radio in the kitchen at work. So one of the guys tuned in a popular new music station. It was as alien to me as alien gets

[tapper mike]

But then again, a lot of Asian pop is really trying hard to sound more American than some Americans

Pop, rap, hip-hop... even rock, maybe. These styles are not representative of each country's culture. You need to listen to their folk (ethnic) music to understand what's about and what are their roots. And instrumental music. When you leave words out of the picture, music will then really stands as an universal language, where each one still shows his/her roots, but the language is understood by anyone else.

Pop and derivatives are just a sub-product of the american colonized urban sub-culture.

I don't agree. Otherwise, the only U.S. music to listen to if you want to understand America would be southern "country" and nothing else. Music styles (pop, rock, jazz, blues, trance, etc.) are international. It is true that 99% of songs around the world come from U.S. (because of post war cultural domination). This however does not mean pop-rock songs from other countries are sub-products or derivative. They are infact as original as the U.S. products. Only, if they are not famous in America first (after being translated into American language), they are totally ignored by the rest of the world. It is so called "American Imperialism". See "Gangamgan style" (or whatever it was called), one of the million shitty songs around the world. Once it became popular in America, the rest of the world started to sing it and the singer had even to apologize on American TVs for his anti-americanism

Either I am reading it wrong, or in the end you are agreeing with me (kind of)

"This however does not mean pop-rock songs from other countries are sub-products or derivative. They are infact as original as the U.S. products." This is something we agree on - but with different meanings

I like the old K-pop and the old J-pop as well. One of those hair band heavy metal guitarists shredders who lived for many years in Japan said. You can't call it American rock because they bring a uniqueness to the music which should and could never be done in the states.

With regards to Jazz. It was called the only original American Art form. While the rest of the world marveled at the music we brought to the world none came close to recreating it on foreign shores for many, many decades. Jazz however embraces change in direction and expands rather then contracts as newer sub-genres appear.

With regards to Country. Yes the rest of the world calls it "American Music" It doesn't mean they can't play it even if they can't keep the accent. Country was a cross pollination of traditional folk and the blues and shares a rich heritage with Bluegrass. In the early years it was known as "honkey tonk" music and Country&Western. Many of the pioneers of Country were from Canada such as Hank Snow. This "American Music" had / has a strong following in eastern europe. Try as they may many from communist countries have a hard time breaking into the western market.
Great Band Great documentary - http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/th ... ing_strait

[emcee]

I'm showing my age.

Last night we were allowed to have a radio in the kitchen at work. So one of the guys tuned in a popular new music station. It was as alien to me as alien gets

Google knows..

2016-10-04 13_46_44-today's music - Google Search.jpg

[Cruba]

Interesting Thread... Grats...

Music is always made for one person: The producer/songwriter who made it. Other people could join him and like a Song. If you wanna know if music is universal, please don't argue with the Beatles. Such bands are pushed by a worldwide community and soon when labels & managers find such a pearl, they start to push them more.

To find out if music is universal, you must give totally different people (town, jungle, less intellect, brilliant ones and so on) a CD with 50 Songs and they must tell you if they like it. Just such investigations would be "kind of" serious.

But: Some guys in the jungle listening to Yellow Submarine will always say they like it, because they are much more trained to be polite than someone in let's say berlin or new york.

I say music is universal... Why?

I'm not agressive, but I like Henry Rollins...
I'm not classical orientated but I like Henry Purcell, additionally I hate classical singers, but love Klaus Nomi for Cold Song
I'm not goth/emo, but the 1st day of spring when the air starts to smell good, I listen to Entreat and make a long walk in town...
I'm nor a hard metal guy, but I love U.D.O...
I'm not depressive, but I like Pulp...
I'm drummer, grown up with Collins & genesis, but I hear much techno, house & trance and also produce trance.

Think about it...










You wanna make me happy? Gimme this... Shivers and happy feelings after 1 second...


You wanna bring me down? Gimme that...


Music MUST be universal, cos all this people got me.

[emcee]

Second largest concert attendance took place in 1991 with the following artists, with 1.6 million attending.
AC/DC, Pantera, Metallica, The Black Crowes

That was in Moscow.. not sure how "You Shook Me All Night Long" translates into Russian, but I'm sure Angus Young's riffs translate universally (and on a large scale with those figures.. )

FYI - Largest was Jean Michael Jarre, 2.5 million in Paris, 1990.

[harryupbabble]

Second largest concert attendance took place in 1991 with the following artists, with 1.6 million attending.
AC/DC, Pantera, Metallica, The Black Crowes

That was in Moscow.. not sure how "You Shook Me All Night Long" translates into Russian, but I'm sure Angus Young's riffs translate universally (and on a large scale with those figures.. )

FYI - Largest was Jean Michael Jarre, 2.5 million in Paris, 1990.

But that could just mean that those crowds are into those bands. It doesn't say anything about music being universal.

If you replace those crowds with, oh I don't know, let's say, the Celine Dion crowd and get the same result, then yes maybe music is universal.

[harryupbabble]

So, I've been Googling the topic some more. And below is an excerpt from a web page.

http://edm.com/articles/2016/7/16/scien ... l-language

Music lovers worldwide have realized a rather fundamental point some time ago. Namely that culture has a rather important role in shaping aesthetic responses to music. Nevertheless, this topic has been a controversy in the scientific community. Basically, the debate centers on whether perceptions of pleasant note combinations, or “consonance”, and unpleasant combinations, or “dissonance” have a biological rather than outright cultural basis. So, is consonance a Western musical construct or an underlying musical universality?

Scientists publishing in science journal Nature, conducted research among native societies in the Amazon sufficiently isolated from Western music. They found that, “Despite exhibiting Western-like discrimination abilities and Western-like aesthetic responses to familiar sounds and acoustic roughness, the Tsimane’ rated consonant and dissonant chords and vocal harmonies as equally pleasant.”

They go on to suggest that many cultures distanced from Western musical influence are rather agnostic about the whole consonant/dissonant distinction.

[Firebird]

Beauty is in the EAR (and eye) of the beholder.

[emcee]

They go on to suggest that many cultures distanced from Western musical influence are rather agnostic about the whole consonant/dissonant distinction.

Western music (not as in Clint Eastwood, heh) is generally 4/4 time and using a chromatic 12 tone scale.
Take say the Arabic musical scale of 7, and again not necessarily 4/4 but maybe 7/16 time signatures.

To the westerner's ear this can be overly complex, particularly if that ear is fed 4/4 doof doof with the bleeps and blurts, repeat ad nauseum. But..it is music.

Another tangent.
Falco. Some huge hits in the 80's - Rock me Amadeus, Der kommissar. Sung in German and to this day still love listening to them. There was an English translation, but just didn't sound as good. Likewise Nena and 99 luft balloons.. English version.. meh. German version oh yeah.