Is music different to sound..?

[Topiness]

OK, so I was thinking along these lines -

I've met a lot of people who slag off modern art...
'it's just a bunch of lines','What's it meant to be?', that kind of thing.

And yet those same people, probably traditionalists, wouldn't slag off Beethoven or Mozart because it doesn't sound like rain, wind, cows mooing, or whatever. So I was wondering.. Is there some difference between the senses of vision and hearing that makes it easier to appreciate non-representational sound?

I've asked a few people about this now and they seem to agree that it's because music can trigger your emotions directly, in a way that visual art usually cannot.

So do you agree?
Is there a human 'sense of music' that can be considered apart from our perception of sound in general? or is music just a bunch of psychoacoustic effects in combination?

[Barf]

I have heard of some research where they found that the visual part of the brain is stimulated when listening music.

[Barf]

You might wanna read the article posted in this thread :
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 51&start=0

[Topiness]

You might wanna read the article posted in this thread :
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 51&start=0

Any devs interested in making a light-up brain VST?

[WoJ]

I believe that auditory perception has more effect on our emotions than visual perception yes. We use our eyes nearly all of the time to take in information. We see a wide range of colours, patterns, objects, and visual stimuli almost constantly - and our brain is discarding most of it. With sound/music, I think it has much more of an effect on our brain - we do not usualy hear a wide range of sounds/music in the same way as seeing a wide range of visuals on a daily basis. We probably hear a wide range of sounds throughout the day, but we are not constantly hearing wide tonal ranges, harmony, chordal and rhythmical information all the time - so when we do it has a greater impact. Thats not to say that we are not affected by art/visuals. Perhaps ask people if they would prefer a laser show, fireworks, CGI type weird-o effect to music, then you might get a bit of a tie between music and visuals. Put them both together however and i bet everyone'll prefer that.

As for what is classed as sound, and what is classed as music - i believe that music is a way of creating/arranging various sounds in such a way as to produce an emotional response; music is composed by people. Sound to me would be unarranged and 'naturally' occurring' as in a product of something else, but not specificaly created by someone.

However, i'd be unsure what an unprocessed recording of a sound would be. Someone recording a sound would mean the sound would have been recorded for a purpose, for some emotional/specific meaning, so therefore it had been arranged and therefore would be 'music'. On the other hand, if it hasnt been processed in any way, i'd be unsure weather recording a sound, would qualify as 'arranging' sound, so i'd say it was just sound.

I'd also be unsure on what to class such things as 'bird song'. On one hand birds are just producing sound - they are just communicating. It depends how you would define singing and talking amongst humans - at what point are we talking and therefore only communicating, and at what point are we singing/humming, and therefore producing music. Birds communicate through what we might class as singing, but that might just be a form of talking to them.



WoJ

[Barf]

Smell is the 'oldest' sense, evolutionary speaking, i think its also the only sense that goes 'directly' into the brain, thats why some smells can recall very vivid emotions and memories.

[tee boy]

I have heard of some research where they found that the visual part of the brain is stimulated when listening music.

Synaethesia.

Iv heard it speculated that this is how we developed language - correlating the way a word sounds with the way something looks. If it looks spikey, there will be sharp consonants in word used to describe it. I find this theory totally plausable.

Also, I think that sounds can become associated with memories, just as much can. So in that respect, sound and music are very similar. Infact, I dont think there is a line at all!

The real difference between sound and music (imo), is that with music, their is preconcieved intent to communicate metaphorically. With sound, there is no such intent. Whether others perceive it as music or just noise depends I guess on their ability to decipher said communication.

TB

[shamann]

But, our appreciation of the arts isn't purely sensual. A lot of how we perceive things is influenced by social relationships, so that how we appreciate music is heavily influenced by how we've been presented music, and so on.

It's interesting that people will reject music that is representational, but often prefer representational paintings. A lot of it comes out of the classical understanding of the role of the arts. Many folk will only accept art for what they are told is good about it, rather than how they experience it.

Although from another point of view, music, despite its obvious artifice, is embedded with natural phenomena. Have a look here as an example:

http://classes.yale.edu/fractals/panora ... larke.html

[Gregjazz]

Personally I like to hear the music in everything, because there are lessons to be learned. Sometimes you open a particularly squeaky door, and it plays you a short little melody. Everything has its own song to tell you.

I don't know, maybe it's my perfect pitch, but I tend to notice the pitches in "non-musical" things. Not to forget rhythm, either. There's a natural rhythm in a lot of things, too. Listen to the rhythm of footsteps and other things around you. There's a whole ensemble unawaredly performing for you!

We have the tendency to separate things that are intended to be music and things that might not be intended to be music. We also separate music and life, among other things. IMO these things are all connected. As soon as you start seeing the natural rhythms and melodies of life, you get a broader, higher plane of what music really is and what it means to us as humans.

[tee boy]

Personally I like to hear the music in everything, because there are lessons to be learned. Sometimes you open a particularly squeaky door, and it plays you a short little melody.

Funny you should say that... my front door is mustard on the clarinet!

Sorry, I totally know what you mean. I guess thats what those guys thought who came up with concrete music back in't day.

TB

[manytone]

Sometimes you open a particularly squeaky door, and it plays you a short little melody. Everything has its own song to tell you.

I don't know, maybe it's my perfect pitch, but I tend to notice the pitches in "non-musical" things.

Heh
That is strange to hear you say that Greg as just after we talked on the phone today I jumped in the wifes car to go grab a couple beers and her car door has this huge squeak to it. I have not wanted to oil it as I wanted to sample it and our mobile recording system is not operational at the moment. (actually it is lost in transit being sent back to the manufacturer at this point)
On that note the sound of an opening beer can has also always set a rhythm in me head

And what is even cooler is we work together and we both have perfect pitch (except when i sing ..lol )... What is also cool though is the way we peg each other though when our ears get tired

EDIT ...heh notice we posted the same time about the same quote tee boy.

Paul

[Topiness]

It's interesting that people will reject music that is representational, but often prefer representational paintings.

that's exactly what I was driving at, really. What's the bit of our visual brain that's missing? or has it, as you said, much to do with culture and convention?

Personally I like to hear the music in everything

So do I. And yet there are such things as beautiful/evocative chord progressions and really funky rhythms (and, hell, filter sweeps) that seem to hit parts of the brain that naturally ocurring sounds can't reach.

Music can affect us at the basic psychological response level (like a lound bang) and also at the conceptual/intellectual level (like language). And yet it mainly seems to get us somewhere in between...

[EkleipSiS]

It's interesting that people will reject music that is representational, but often prefer representational paintings.

On the same note i think abstrac painting is accepted usually but abstract music is not...in fact were very far from that...i think people who are listening to abstract music...(no clear melodies,lot of noises,no rythms,sound fx,ambient)..are considered weirdos by other...i always thought visual art have gone deeper into exploring its field of possibilities compared to music..and visual technologies are more close to the complex reality than the tools for music...for example cgi can sometimes recreate things almost identical to physical reality but were still waiting for a vst to simulate a sound as complex as a physical sound...and those who tries are usually not close to the real thing...so before that happens were still sampling to get closer to that...

[Gregjazz]

And what is even cooler is we work together and we both have perfect pitch (except when i sing ..lol )...

Yeah, intonation when singing is still hard for me. It's almost like there's varying degrees of perfect pitch. Some people can tell you exactly how many cents out of tune a sound is, and for some people hearing something out of tune (with no reference) is physically painful. In that case, I'm glad my perfect pitch ends at being able to identify notes and chords without a pitch reference.

[intel]

On the same note i think abstrac painting is accepted usually but abstract music is not...in fact were very far from that...i think people who are listening to abstract music...(no clear melodies,lot of noises,no rythms,sound fx,ambient)..are considered weirdos by other...

yeah. most of us hide our appreciation of abstract sound from the normals. the last thing I want is to be burned at the stake for thinking atonal distortion drones are beautiful.