I'll try to make this point by going full a**hole Socrates and asking: how would you define music?
I think like any artform, this question is best left to each individual who is doing the creating. Everyone who enter the arena to make art has to determine for themselves what the parameters are. Just as it is up to me, as an individual in the audience, to determine what has been done or not done within those parameters.
So to answer your question about a general definition of music, I have to be as general as possible, and offer you the simplest definition of the basic elements music uses, which would be sound and silence, and the interplay of these two elements together. As for its purpose, it would be to use sound and silence to elicit feelings or thoughts in those either listening to or creating it.
While it might seem like it, I'm not trying to be either obtuse or evasive with this answer. Since I'm not terribly interested in artistic defintions which are used to exclude the possibilities of any medium, always willing to embrace all of the contradictions that art affords, I've got to play fast and loose here.
I think it would be difficult to formulate a definition that did not allow for this kind of sliding scale, without being so expansive as to seemingly include things none of us think are music.
As you can probably tell, I'm pretty okay being very expansive in the definition. I still don't really see the heresy involved in something that we instinctively want to reject as being music, sneaking into our definition of music. While I get that having parameters gives comfort, allows us to better articulate what we want to hear and allows us ways to gauge the worth of a piece of art with greater clarity and assurances, I like the inherent hopelessness that such a wide ranging defintion as mine provides.
Why do I like this? Well, I think its because the fewer measurable metrics we have to fall back on in our criticisms or praises, the more it forces us into a place of vulnerability in our critical efforts. Critics need less crutches to make themselves feel entirely sure of their evaluations. It's good to force more of our skin into the game as well if we are going to sit on the sidelines and dismiss what an artist is showing us. And limiting the devices we can use to 'prove' our point with any assurances, forces us to dig more and more into our personal feelings about the work. It forces the critic to be an artist in a way themself. The only way I'm really willing to listen to what a critic has to say with any seriousness.
Now, this doesn't mean I think we should throw all of our scales into the garbage when talking about music (or films or whatever). It's good to have the expertise of musicians who can talk about technical elements, or those who study language to offer their insights on lyrics (etc etc). But for me, I want enough uncertainty, that none of these things can entirely bail us out when we are trying to criticize or absolve a piece of art. There should always be an opening left open for us to change our mind, and a lot of these 'scales' almost can't help eventually being used dogmatically. And because art critics have a tendency to want to destroy that which we hate (you know, like me with Babydriver) I think its good to make it as hard as possible to totally annihalte something just in case we'd like to return to it one day.
The word "musical" just by itself seems to imply a sliding scale, where things that are not music can also be more or less musical
I suppose if you pointed at a chair, and asked me 'is this music', I would have to answer 'no'. So there are limits, even for me.
I agree it's rarely just that, but then, people who say "rap isn't music" are rarely just being stupid or insensitive or close-minded or whatever, too. That's kinda my whole thing here: you'll notice I'm sorta-kinda "defending" the notion even though I think it's wrong, because I think the reality of that statement is complicated and referring to an actual idea worth holding, even if the way it sometimes comes out is literally wrong and inarguably reductive. When I say jaded people are susceptible to overrating novelties, I certainly don't mean that this supplants all their typical critical faculties or anything.
I think it is entirely fine if someone like Captain Steel wants to dismiss rap from their understanding of music. And by this I mean, they are willing to not consider it something that would ever provide them any musical satisfaction (ie. the use of sound and silence, per my definition). My disgruntledness towards the 'not music' argument, as already articulated, only begins once it starts bleeding out to implicate those who create this 'not music', the people who are fans of it, and the culture it creates. Usually, it is obvious that this is what they mean. But, in the case of Capt, I feel there were a few things he said that were beginning to start implicating beyond his personal realm. And since there are definitely some people out there who very much want to debase rap music, sometimes for some pretty nefarious purposes, I simply wanted to point out the absurdity (and the offence) of these kind of claims if it continued moving in that direction. Not that I assumed it was going there....but just in case.
But the tricky, ouroboros thing here is that certain forms of transgression are interesting only because they defy convention
And if that is what it you ultimately decide when you are evaluating something, you'd have every reason to write out why you believe it is a vile, empty piece of crap. I definitely would, and have done so many times before (the film Voyage to Agatis would be a film I personally believe has no value outside of its provocations, and as a result, I think is worthless).
But I've also been on the other side where I've seen a movie I think has great value because of its transgressions (Salo, Last House on Dead End Street), and it can be frustrating to be told that there is no worth for me to find there. Why? Because someone has already determined it is empty. Not just for that person, but for anyone who comes upon it. They are frauds, unworthy of even debate (which is a ridiculous position to take, on its face, if we really care about art and what it offers us...endless opportunities to empathize with and understand things we otherwise might never have)
So, for me the door is always open to discuss what a piece of art can offer us. And I'd be more than eager to have someone explain anything of worth in Voyage to Agatis, even though it hasn't happened yet (and hardly expect it to). So, once again, it looks like I'm dodging any talk of absolutes. But I do so with complete sincerity towards this argument. I just really can't go there.
No art form can be truly freeform, without expectation or convention
We all have certain expectations whenever we begin to listen to a song or put on a movie. We also are aware of what most of an artforms conventions are before we even put it on. So, true, I don't think an art can completely defy the gravity of this. But it can dance around them, and we can contemplate how it moves in their absence, avoids them, spits at them, pretends to kiss them and plays hard to get. And you can still get pretty freeform while doing this. So freeform there might be no discernible difference.
To not have artistic conventions is to not have art, and I think most conventions are there for a good reason.
Conventions emerge simply because they appeal to a larger segment of audiences. This neither makes conventions good or bad by nature, but they do create an environment where the unconventional is treated with hostility. And, yes, this in some ways can be good business for the creation or consumption of a piece of unconventional work. It can make a piece of art resilient in the face of such derision. It can create the template where we consider where it deviates from what is expected, and why this might elate us through how it illuminates in doing so.
But it also invariably isolates. Pushes those who naturally have unorthodox interests or peculiar ways of having their attention grabbed, further marginalized as liking something that is 'weird'. Or pointless. Or stupid. Or annoying. Or worst of all, being told what they like is a bunch of horseshit, and they are only pretending to like it.
That's all true, but using this example, if you sit down and talk to them...does your burger taste any better?
No. Especially considering my example was set at a McDonalds. That cashier had nothing invested in the creation of that burger. But if it was at a restaurant where the person I was talking to made creative decisions on how they wanted to cook that burger, understanding who that person is, why they chose those ingredients, who they would like to impress with their food, what kind of day they were having so maybe today they burnt the burger, makes me empathize with its creation. Makes me more willing to consider the taste of it if my initial reaction was I simply didn't like it. Or thought it was weird. Or too flavorful. Or not flavorful enough. But maybe once provided with this empathy of who they are, what their culture is, what that means to them, would make me think of trying that hamburger again and seeing if I might think of it differently the next time.
I agree, but I'm not sure that makes it music (to be clear, I'm not expressing any opinion about whether those specific examples qualify, I'm just responding to this quote). Writing about music can make me view it in a different way. A near-death experience may make me view music in a different way. Anything can, and most of "anything" is not music.
Personally, I think it is music, even if I'm not a particular fan of either of those clips. I've enjoyed some similar types of experiments in found sound. I have been moved by them. I have had my thinking changed by them. I have allowed them to make me interpret the texture of more conventional music differently. And while, yes, other non-musical things can also change how I engage with music, a near death experience, even by my liberal definition, is not music. If John Cage invited some tape recorders into a room to record his dying breaths, this would change things. But it would be because he is now forcing us to focus on the sounds and the silences of the moment, and sound and silence, by any defintion, are the basic elements of music.
All true, but even this means he did not create music, only that he influenced it.
He influence it through his use of sound. He is a composer. A musical thinker. I get the push back of why we might not want to bestow the crown of this being 'music', because I think there is fear in some that this might open the floodgates to charlatans and make it appear that 'anyone can do this'. And while I do have legitimate concerns about the former, I'm more than happy to accept that threat for the promise afforded by the notion of 'anyone being able to do it'.
Not at all, it's been insightful and interesting.
Feel free to continue or not, or to continue later, or whatever.
I'll get around to it sometime, I'm sure