What is music? Most would agree that breaking glass is not music, just as most would agree that smashing a cello with a hammer is less musical than vibrating a bow across its strings. Many say that music is a series of sounds which contain the elements of rhythm and pitch, but most music we hear follows certain patterns beyond rhythm and pitch. Music as we know it contains key signatures and time signatures, chord progressions and other repetitive harmonies. This strict language that we have built for music is called tonality. So we must ask ourselves, is tonality necessary for music? This question was explored by the experimental composers of the twentieth century, including Arnold Schoenberg. The music they wrote was called atonal, without …show more content…
A possible misconception about the music of the time is that a message existed outside of the music; however, these composers intended the message of the music to be nothing more than the music itself. This was a time of meta-music. The music was atonal to illustrate that tonality is not necessary to make music musical. Schoenberg was very against analysis of his work for this very reason; to listen to his music was to understand his purpose, to analyze it was to miss it entirely. According to Elaine Barkin, composer, and Martin Brody, professor of music, "Babbitt has extended the notion of compositional creativity to encompass the development of musical systems themselves, as well as specific compositional achievements within such systems" (Barkin and Brody). Babbitt was one who believed that the musical system was important to the meaning of music. By developing specific atonal structures, he pushed people to explore all facets of music, believing them each important. It did not matter why a composer chose to use this system, the fact that it was used is meaningful enough, reflecting Schoenberg's belief that music held significance for simply being music. While Babbitt stood for the beauty of music in all its forms, Hauer believed that some music was more meaningful than others. John Covach, professor of music theory, says, "In [Vom Wesen des Musikalischen], as well as in his Deutung des Melos (1923) and in many short articles written during the early 1920s, Hauer argues for the superiority of atonal over tonal music, grounding his claims by offering support drawn from acoustics, culture, and spiritual studies" (Covach) Tonality is such a narrow window that anything in it was essentially the same to Hauer, and was thusly unable to contain any true meaning. Atonal music has the
Most people are familiar with the word "music", however they barely consider the definition of it. After carefully think, everyone has their own opinions on this term and it is hard to have an uniform criterion of music sounds. According to the text book, Michael B. Bakan states five propositions to define the music. The first one is about the tone and the second one talks about the music is organized in some way. The next two are claims that music is human organized and a product of human intention and perception. The last proposition argues music cannot separate from Western culture. Among these propositions, I think the music is a product of human intention and perception is most interesting and worth to discuss. So I assert that the most
...elieved that people had to listen to their environment. He wanted music to be personal to each person. He wrote music for whoever wanted to here it. He is an Avant-garde and his motive was to bring new music and different kinds of sounds to our ears. John cage said "Experiment must necessarily be carried on by hitting anything -- tin pans, rice bowls, iron pipes -- anything we can lay our hands on . . . We must explore the materials of music." He is out there to explore to invent and to make us listen. It is truly a matter of opinion for a person to consider some form of sound as music, but overall most of the critics agree, John cage was a revolutionary and he revolutionized the field of music. As William Duckworth puts it ?a person so influential that he changed forever the way we write, hear, and understand music? (Page 81, 20/20).
Music is the most diverse form of art in existence. In modern days, some may view music as merely a bass heavy atmospheric tool for a night of clubbing and mischief, but despite this minority perspective, music is by no means purely background noise. Music is not only a beat, a rhythm, melody, lyrics, and a voice; it can change lives.
Over time, mankind’s music has developed from disorderly to orderly; tonal music was being one of the most brilliant chapters in the 17th century before Schoenberg’s big transformation of music. However, since the pioneer figure of Second Viennese School- Arnold Schoenberg began the atonal music, a new chapter of music composition has been created. Tonality collapse has been seen as the most important step towards music at the late 19th and early 20th century.
Music is far more than the sum of its parts. It can be thought of in a highly mathematical sense, which leaves one in awe of the seemingly endless combinations of rhythm, tone and intervals that a good musician can produce. Admiring music in this way is a lot like admiring an intricate snowflake, or shapes in the clouds; it's beautiful, but at the same time very scientific, based on patterns. All of the aforementioned qualities of music have one thing in common: they can be defined with numeric, specific values. However, the greatest aspect of music lies elsewhere, and cannot be specifically defined with words. It is the reaction that each individual has when they are confronted with their favorite (or least favorite) kind of music.
The book is divided into four chapters: 1) Humanly Organized Sound, 2) Music in Society and Culture, 3) Culture and Society in Music, and 4) Soundly Organized Humanity. In chapter one, Blacking discusses the analysis of sound. He begins by describing music as humanly organized sound. His overarching theme is that “the function of tones in relation to each other cannot be explained adequately as part of a closed system” (30). In other words, music can’t be analyzed simply by one set of rules. This is because every single culture has a different system that they use to structure and compose their music. In order to adequately analyze a society’s music we have to study their “system.” We must learn what music means to them. Then, and only then, can we accurately and completely analyze what a particular type or piece of music means to a particular society and culture.
Since the earliest days of human civilization music has been a key tool for communication of stories which carried emotions through them. If we think back to our youngest years of life music has surrounded us whether it was from our parents singing us lullabies or from some sort of toy that played music we can say that musical melodies have helped shape or lives one way or another. Once we start growing up and figuring out who we are our musical preferences change; some people like classical and some like punk. We start to befriend people who like the same music as us and eventually we may attend a musical event. Our lives somewhat revolve around the music that we listen to.
Language employs signs which, to use Saussure's terms, are arbitrary and differential, but signs which nevertheless enable us to identify their referent. Music, like language, consists of organized sounds, but unlike language, those sounds have no referent. Eduard Hanslick wrote The Beautiful in Music in 1854 and any explanation and evaluation of his claim that 'the essence of music is sound and motion' must have regard to historical context in determining the author's meaning. For Hanslick 'music' meant principally the instrumental and orchestral works of the 18th Century and first half of the 19th Century, the period we might loosely call 'classical'- music whose 'primordial element' was 'euphony' (The beautiful in music, TAB, p.421). Hanslick's views cannot easily be extrapolated to the late 2Oth Century where even a period of silence (4'33" by John Cage) can claim to be 'music'1, a 'composition' which underlined, albeit provocatively, that silence, as well as s...
For thousands of years, music has been a part of people’s lives and has evolved through many different forms over time. Music is the art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre (American Heritage). One important component of analyzing music is whether it has musical value. In other words, music does not have to be organized sound or produced by instruments. This is what composers and artists of experimental music discover. Experimental music is an art form, makes use of instruments or other items that can produce sound, and can alter or expand the basic foundations of music and musicality. These are the key elements that define experimental music.
Because it’s occurrence was prior to recorded history, the origin of music is still unknown; however, some believe that it’s creation was stemmed through the occurrence of natural sounds and rhythms. Humans may have learned to incorporate these natural sounds into their music by using patterns, repetition, or tonality.
From the rock and roll music of today, to the jazz and big band music of the thirties, all the way to tribal drums and the chanting of monks, music is ever present in society. What is it about music that allows it to transcend time? Music is not something that can be easily explained. How would one define the way simple rhythms and melodies can create an entire world? Music is free and undefined. It is not hindered by language barriers, and its only boundaries are within the imagination of the musician or composer. Music is the essence of passion and contains endless possibilities.
The bulk of the time, music can be defined as the expression of thoughts over a variety of situations, a sparkler of emotions, a statement addressed to the world and in more specific cases, it is a really strong remainder of an event or just an addition to a casual day. There are too many genres of music, sometimes, it separates people into groups, according to their personal musical tastes.
One may not realize the ample amount of mathematics that is included all genres of music. Music is the art of arranging sounds in harmony, melody, and rhythm in time to produce a continuous composition. Although there is not legitimate proof of where and when music originated, it is has played a part of everyone’s history.
What is music? Music is defined as an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color according to dictionary.com. What is sound? Sound is the sensation produced by stimulation of the organs of hearing by vibrations transmitted through the air or other medium; mechanical vibrations transmitted through an elastic medium, traveling in air at a speed of approximately 1087 feet (331 meters) per second at sea level (Sound, 2014). To put that into simpler terms, sound is manufactured when an object moves and creates friction to make vibrations.
With my major being Sociology, and having been interested in human nature long before declaring, I was excited, but again unsurprised, to learn the ability of music to communicate feeling—both good and bad. Just as Aaron Copland states in his interview with psychologists Lawrence E. Abt and Stanley Rosner, “Music is a language of the emotions…either on a very plain and elementary basis, or …on a highly complex one…it generally gives off some sort of generalized emotional feeling…” This belief was mirrored by another famous composer, Leonard Bernstein in his essay This I Believe, “I believe in man’s unconscious mind, the deep spring from which comes his power to communicate and to love. For me, all art is a combination of these powers; for if love is the way we have of communicating personally in the deepest way, then what art can do is to extend this communication, magnify it, and carry it to vastly greater numbers of