Talk:Music

I haven't made any changes to this page, yet, but the first thing I'm planning on addressing is the opening statement and this sentence, "the broadest definition of music is organized sound and silence in time." Counter-examples of this definition are easy to come by, and thus, it is not the "broadest definition" of music. The main problem is with the use of the word "organized", as organized sound is not a common trait among all music. Many pieces by John Cage were entirely random, and the same can be said about certain pieces by, for instance, Xenakis. It could be argued that the planning process of a random (stochastic) piece is in effect an organizing process. For instance, while a Xenakis piece is highly random, the score is very precise and well defined. In a piece like 4'33", however, the idea is to turn the performance on its head, and cause the audience to be the performer. In this setting, the sounds that the audience creates are completely random, and thus the sound has not been organized in the slightest. I'm considering changing the opening sentence to something like "music is an an art form concerned with sound and silence". --Tom Gersic 23:19, 8 February 2007 (CST)

Note: These two sentences contradict each other: "The broadest definition of music is organized sound and silence in time. These two elements may be organized in an almost infinite variety of ways ranging from complete randomness to highly constructed systems." If it's random it can't be organized. The definition of music page would be a good place to discuss the difficulties in precisely defining music. --Tom Gersic 23:21, 8 February 2007 (CST)

I like both those points, and think the "music is an an art form concerned with sound and silence" is the way to go. Using that will lend itself to rewrites of the contradictory phrases regarding constructed vs randomness. Later on, those can be described as schools of thought or two large categories which everything falls into. There are also viewpoints that say natural sounds, either human made (sounds of a city)or nature made (whales, birds, wind, storms)are forms of music as well (I recall not to long ago someone amplifying the sounds made by icebergs rubbing up against each other and created drone like music with it). I think those can be explored here as well. So I think that with all that in mind, music can be categorized as "organized, unorganized, and natural". Another thing to consider is a distinction between noise and music which can then bring about a realm of interpretation. Water droplets falling on a metal can is noise to the passerby, but someone siting on a park bench relaxing might find it musical, or at least rhythmic.--Brian Clements 23:37, 14 February 2007 (CST)

Could it not be worth mentioning in the "definition" of music that the definition itself is a timeless source of discussion? For ex.: "While a source of debate, music is defined most broadly as sound and silence in time." And I think it might be worth possibly saying" "While a source of debate, music is defined most broadly as sound and silence in measured or unmeasured time." In using this statement, a section of the article would have to be created to discuss the debate, and could be linked to in the statement. --Steven Baker 14:30, 11 April 2010 (CST)