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-- John Cage - 4'33"
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Posted by SYSTEM-J on Feb-16-2007 16:45:

quote:
Originally posted by Psy-T
i didn't claim the sounds are organised, i claimed the composition is organised. and the fact that in a vacuum it would be different has no relevance to the issue since 1. vacuums only exist in hypotheticals, and 2. almost everything would behave differently in a vacuum.


I'm not talking about vacuums. If you wanted to perform 4.33 with a synthesiser and record the results, like you can any piece of written music, you'd get utter silence as your recordings. There's nothing hypothetical about it- you can record performances with absolutely no unwanted noise. No sound wave at all. Nothing.

And again, it's simple pedantry to take "organised" to its extreme. You've defined any purposefully made sounds that will cause emotional effect "music." Therefore, any form of human communication through sound is music. The only difference is context. You've been told certain sounds are music because you're sat in a concert hall.


Posted by david.michael on Feb-16-2007 16:56:

All this argument over four and a half minutes of empty silence.

LOL.

P.S.- Kr00t0n wins best post in the thread.


Posted by PETRAN on Feb-16-2007 18:45:

quote:
Are you asserting that art and science are so comparable?
Originally posted by thoughtlessjex


No, i'm saying that they are both defined by some propositions that distinquish them from other categories. If that was not the case then anything could be labelled as "art". But, ok even if you don't like the term "science" and you find it too "lawfull" for your taste, then read again my post and substitute the word "science" with the word "art". "Posting in TA-A NEW WORK OF ART!". Amazing, i may actually be famous by starting this new artistic movement...!


quote:
Originally posted by Psy-T
is one of these more beautiful/ugly than the other?



Emmm they are just swiss army-knives? i mean, i don't know i can't see any difference from the aesthetic side of things. Ermmm...can you?


quote:
it's simple, someone makes music (or something that sounds strangely alike to music) without a statement, without emotion, and without intention to express anything with it. either his music (and many others') isn't really music, or this requirement is null because it becomes another 'may'.



Its not simple at all because if we don't have a bloody definition of music (and silence and noise can be music...) then how the hell are we going to know that we actually experience music or that we rather feel the invasion of aliens on planet earth? Especially in the current case, where it is done without intention, emotion or expression!?!


quote:
music (like art) is an inherently subjective term (moreso than noise and silence are), hence there can be no objective difference between music and noise.



Oh ok, so the link that i've posted is crap, all the people who believe that there IS an actual distinction are wrong,it is wrong to have two words for them in the first place, all the previous centuries' composers, musicians and music theorists who played music (in wikipedia's terms) and distinquished it from noise were just stupid...i can go on...



quote:
nature provides even more elegance, complexity, and adherence to mathematical formulas than classical music did and does, yet you deny it the right to be called Art.



Yes of course i deny it and i believe it violates the assumption of what art is! So, what can the volcano be art?Is the river art? Is the sea an artistic creation? Is everything art?

And i associate the complexity with conscious and effortfull creation not with some random algorithm.

quote:
err, 'this modern notion' is all-encompassing in its claim that all can be music, including everything you do agree deserves the term music. so if it's a question of how large a percentage of things a certain theory encompasses, you're on the wrong side



Lol man, if everything IS music then what IS music? Is everything music and music is everything?lol. This sounds like an LSD-trip FGS...!(and a bad-one!)

quote:
how can you miss it? your entire post was full of that fallacy



Sorry i still can't see it


quote:
as i wrote in my reply to system j, it's not the organistion of sound, rather than organisation of the piece (time? tempo? key? required instruments? players? et cetera).



Oh, ok so now the new definition is that music occurs when there is an organisation of players and not sound...all these centuries everyone thought that music was the organisation of sound but actually music occurs when there is just a band without the need to play (ROFL). Everyone in this earth believes that music is the organisation of sound (except for a bunch of people) but they are all wrong. The only thing you need to perform music is to hold an instrument! Come on TAs lets be musicians!

Errmm does it apply to the organisation of everything or just instrument players? Is music the organisation of everything?


quote:
in any audible sound and pattern heard througout the preformence. btw, pitch does not automatically translate to mean melody, every sound has pitch.



Every sound has a pitch, but i thought that in music, you need a kind of pitch that its physical wave-pattern corrsponds to what people perceive as melody! It seems i was wrong. Breaking the monitor of my laptop can generate a beauty of a melody (let me cosnider it as art and not an act of desperation. It sounds better... ).

It seems though that there is no rhtythm in the composition...or you can get music without the need of any rhythm at all? And yes its not music, this performer-organisation is just bollocks even if you like it even if you don't!


quote:
whether or not it holds truth is irrelevant to whether it is a requirement or not.


It is true that in order to writte something comprehensable in english you need to have agood knowledge of english. It is not a pre-requisite, but if its not it wouldn't be comprehensible. So, you need good english for good comprehension.

In order to write music you first need to know what music is.
Knowing music-writing music. Not knowing music? Not writing music...(you may write something else but music its not)

quote:
i'm having a really hard time understanding what you're saying here. the last portion of my post was an analogy designed to show that just because something has quite a history of being the accepted standard does not mean that it is true.



The analogy you make is WRONG from the very beginning since it is drawn between two different entities. What i, and anthropologists mean by "primitive universals", is the functional attributes that every human in the world potentially has, regardless of the enviroment he/she is grown-up. E.g. Talking is a universal primitive. Music is a universal primitive (and obeys the definition by wikipedia and mine as well). Making causal inferences (such as i walk in a flat earth hence all earth should be flat) is a universal primitive, BUT the infered that is described within the parenthesis(your argument) IS NOT. It is derived by the PROCESS of making inferences-which is a universal primitive- but the statement or belief is not a universal primitive in itself. It is rather an information that is subject to change, it would be directly influenced by the culture and environment and it would definitely not be universal and not every civilisation and tribe (as you vastly-vaguely put it) has/had the current belief.

Music is universal process. The music pieces could change from time and time and culture to culture. But music as a universal human attribute is invariant, at least this is what the world shows us until now. Actually these universal primitives may have a strong genetic component (they are governed by brain areas which are genetically defined) whereas their contents don't. (not every human is potentially born with the belief that earth is flat!He/she must learn it first-or any belief for that matter. It due to the universal primitive of abstract learning that allows him/her to learn but the acquired belief is not. Every human can be born with the potential of understanding and maing music but not all humans like to play the drums). I hope you understood...!

quote:
and it does, it means most people don't enjoy Cage's work and the work of others inspired by his ideas. and btw, lol at the bias argument - asking the most likely proponents of the time-cherished classical movement and theories for their opinion on something that (in their minds) negates their life's work.


This "modern", view negates every serious musicians life's work, destroys the notion of music, causes confusion to listeners and leaves everyone with the uncertainty of what music actually is.


Posted by jupiterone on Feb-16-2007 19:44:


Posted by thoughtlessjex on Feb-16-2007 20:02:

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
No, i'm saying that they are both defined by some propositions that distinquish them from other categories. If that was not the case then anything could be labelled as "art". But, ok even if you don't like the term "science" and you find it too "lawfull" for your taste, then read again my post and substitute the word "science" with the word "art". "Posting in TA-A NEW WORK OF ART!". Amazing, i may actually be famous by starting this new artistic movement...!

I replaced science with art, and it worked. And you could certainly assert that posting in TA is a work of art. I, for one won't disagree, and would probably be able to find such posts as not only verify your claim, but could in fact be counted among the most quality works within that style.

I doubt it would make you famous, though. If the trance market is being flooded by shitty bedroom producers these days, then posting on TA is downright dominated by them. This is not a good environment for pioneering a marketable product.


Posted by Psy-T on Feb-17-2007 08:57:

quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I'm not talking about vacuums. If you wanted to perform 4.33 with a synthesiser and record the results, like you can any piece of written music, you'd get utter silence as your recordings. There's nothing hypothetical about it- you can record performances with absolutely no unwanted noise. No sound wave at all. Nothing.


if i'm not mistaken, 4'33" was composed to be strictly a preformence piece, taking it out of its context isn't too far from taking a modern project-file for a song out of its context by displaying it as binary code. take something to an avenue it's not intended to be in and it'll likely behave differently.

quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
And again, it's simple pedantry to take "organised" to its extreme.


extreme? it's as organised as any classical preformence, it's pure bias to judge the validity of something defined objectively by its result rather than by its accordance to the definition.

quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
You've defined any purposefully made sounds that will cause emotional effect "music."


where did i do this?

quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Therefore, any form of human communication through sound is music. The only difference is context. You've been told certain sounds are music because you're sat in a concert hall.


i don't need to be told that something is music in order to believe it is music, but cheers for the vote of confidence.


Posted by Allied Nations on Feb-17-2007 09:34:

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN

Emmm they are just swiss army-knives? i mean, i don't know i can't see any difference from the aesthetic side of things. Ermmm...can you?


Yeah I agree, no way good design is in any way artistic.


Posted by Psy-T on Feb-17-2007 09:53:

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Emmm they are just swiss army-knives? i mean, i don't know i can't see any difference from the aesthetic side of things. Ermmm...can you?


shapes, colours, interaction between colours, even possibly a sentiment of sorts being projected, personally i find the white/silverish one more appealing.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Its not simple at all because if we don't have a bloody definition of music (and silence and noise can be music...) then how the hell are we going to know that we actually experience music or that we rather feel the invasion of aliens on planet earth? Especially in the current case, where it is done without intention, emotion or expression!?!


by using generalisations rather than absolutes.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Oh ok, so the link that i've posted is crap, all the people who believe that there IS an actual distinction are wrong,it is wrong to have two words for them in the first place, all the previous centuries' composers, musicians and music theorists who played music (in wikipedia's terms) and distinquished it from noise were just stupid...i can go on...


there can be no objective difference between something defined only subjectively and anything else, therefore, yes.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Yes of course i deny it and i believe it violates the assumption of what art is! So, what can the volcano be art?Is the river art? Is the sea an artistic creation? Is everything art?


why not? plenty of things out there i consider more aesthetically pleasing than some of the things you allow to be called art.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
And i associate the complexity with conscious and effortfull creation not with some random algorithm.


  1. 'nature' uses more than a random algorithm
  2. effort (at least under its most basic definition) is used in nature
  3. why is consciousness required for art?


quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Lol man, if everything IS music then what IS music? Is everything music and music is everything?lol. This sounds like an LSD-trip FGS...!(and a bad-one!)


  1. there's a difference between "is" and "can be"
  2. if everything can be music then music can be anything.. that's the way it usually works with subjective terms


quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Sorry i still can't see it


you're using your conclusion to justify your conclusion, if you honestly can't see that, i suppose it's just difficulties with language.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Oh, ok so now the new definition is that music occurs when there is an organisation of players and not sound...all these centuries everyone thought that music was the organisation of sound but actually music occurs when there is just a band without the need to play (ROFL).
Everyone in this earth believes that music is the organisation of sound (except for a bunch of people) but they are all wrong. The only thing you need to perform music is to hold an instrument! Come on TAs lets be musicians!

Errmm does it apply to the organisation of everything or just instrument players? Is music the organisation of everything?


it's not a definition, what you should be discussing to undermine that point if you wish to is the definition of organisation. and btw, argumentum ad verecundiam and argumentum ad populum don't work really well on me, sorry.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Every sound has a pitch, but i thought that in music, you need a kind of pitch that its physical wave-pattern corrsponds to what people perceive as melody! It seems i was wrong. Breaking the monitor of my laptop can generate a beauty of a melody (let me cosnider it as art and not an act of desperation. It sounds better... ).


you perceive 4/4 kick drum patterns (at static tempo) as melodies? awesome!

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
It seems though that there is no rhtythm in the composition...or you can get music without the need of any rhythm at all? And yes its not music, this performer-organisation is just bollocks even if you like it even if you don't!


if there's no rhythm how do all the players know when to turn their notation pages?
as to the bolded segment - great, more circular reasoning.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
It is true that in order to writte something comprehensable in english you need to have agood knowledge of english. It is not a pre-requisite, but if its not it wouldn't be comprehensible. So, you need good english for good comprehension.


and what have you proved with this? that 4'33" is incomprehensible (or whatever you meant to analogize that term to)? that still says nothing regarding whether it is music or not.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
In order to write music you first need to know what music is.
Knowing music-writing music. Not knowing music? Not writing music...(you may write something else but music its not)


.....music is a subjective term.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
The analogy you make is WRONG from the very beginning since it is drawn between two different entities. What i, and anthropologists mean by "primitive universals", is the functional attributes that every human in the world potentially has, regardless of the enviroment he/she is grown-up. E.g. Talking is a universal primitive. Music is a universal primitive (and obeys the definition by wikipedia and mine as well). Making causal inferences (such as i walk in a flat earth hence all earth should be flat) is a universal primitive, BUT the infered that is described within the parenthesis(your argument) IS NOT. It is derived by the PROCESS of making inferences-which is a universal primitive- but the statement or belief is not a universal primitive in itself. It is rather an information that is subject to change, it would be directly influenced by the culture and environment and it would definitely not be universal and not every civilisation and tribe (as you vastly-vaguely put it) has/had the current belief.


every human in the world potentially has every 'fuctional attribute'.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Music is universal process. The music pieces could change from time and time and culture to culture. But music as a universal human attribute is invariant, at least this is what the world shows us until now.


seeing as you put an arbitrary limit on what can and can not be music, you should say it's what you see in the world, not what the world shows you.

as long as you say anything other than X can not be music, obviously you're not gonna see anything other than X as being music. surprised?

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Actually these universal primitives may have a strong genetic component (they are governed by brain areas which are genetically defined) whereas their contents don't. (not every human is potentially born with the belief that earth is flat!He/she must learn it first-or any belief for that matter. It due to the universal primitive of abstract learning that allows him/her to learn but the acquired belief is not. Every human can be born with the potential of understanding and maing music but not all humans like to play the drums). I hope you understood...!


replying to that will take us on a vastly different direction and imo we have enough aspects to this discussion as it is, so unless you insist, i'll ignore it.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
This "modern", view negates every serious musicians life's work, destroys the notion of music, causes confusion to listeners and leaves everyone with the uncertainty of what music actually is.


how? (remember, subjective)


Posted by SYSTEM-J on Feb-17-2007 10:10:

quote:
Originally posted by Psy-T
if i'm not mistaken, 4'33" was composed to be strictly a preformence piece, taking it out of its context isn't too far from taking a modern project-file for a song out of its context by displaying it as binary code. take something to an avenue it's not intended to be in and it'll likely behave differently.


Firstly, show me something that says it is "strictly" a performance piece. I can't see anything written on the sheet to specify. And your analogy is false. The equivalent to the binary code would surely be the sheet music- the instructions. And you can put any classical into a synth and it will "behave differently" to what it was written for, but it's still music.

quote:
extreme? it's as organised as any classical preformence, it's pure bias to judge the validity of something defined objectively by its result rather than by its accordance to the definition.


I'm wondering why you're defining music based on the organisation of people, rather than the sounds that are generating the effect. Is the organisation of lighting and seating also part of it, given as they will be part of the environment that is doing all of the "musical" work?

Now, before you reply to that, read on. Because this next bit highlights just how for-the-sake-of-it your arguments are...

quote:
where did i do this?


Actually, reading back, you didn't. You squirmed from "organised and audible sounds and silence" into "the composition is audible, but the sounds aren't". Cheeky. Let's check out that quoted definition once again:

"Music is an art form that involves organized and audible sounds and silence."

Note quite clearly that "organised" is an adjective forming part of the noun phrase with the head noun "sounds". Now check out your reply:

"so far so good, 4'33" was organized, and contained both audible sounds and silence."

Nice one. You managed to seperate organisation and audible sounds into two different things. Turned an adjective into a noun. Changed the fucking semantics of the entire sentence. And what amuses me greatly is you've admitted in your next post that:

"i didn't claim the sounds are organised"

So what you've actually done is argue against yourself with some conviction, based entirely on what is either slippery debating or a simple mistake. Either way, it shows to me you're pretty much arguing a vaguely philosphical issue for the sake of it here, which is my cue to quit this discussion.


Posted by Psy-T on Feb-17-2007 10:46:

quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Firstly, show me something that says it is "strictly" a performance piece. I can't see anything written on the sheet to specify. And your analogy is false. The equivalent to the binary code would surely be the sheet music- the instructions. And you can put any classical into a synth and it will "behave differently" to what it was written for, but it's still music.


i can't and i'm not about to try, if you've read the sheet music, the program and whatever documentation accompanied the sheet music and the program and they didn't say anything on this matter, i guess i was mistaken, probably something i read in some aesthetics research paper.

if i'm not mistaken however, the analogy does not fail, based on the degree an object is taken out of context, in 4'33"'s case it'll be completely outside its realm, in any other piece that does not specify being designed to exclusively X it will still be within its realm.

quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I'm wondering why you're defining music based on the organisation of people, rather than the sounds that are generating the effect. Is the organisation of lighting and seating also part of it, given as they will be part of the environment that is doing all of the "musical" work?

Now, before you reply to that, read on. Because this next bit highlights just how for-the-sake-of-it your arguments are...



Actually, reading back, you didn't. You squirmed from "organised and audible sounds and silence" into "the composition is audible, but the sounds aren't". Cheeky. Let's check out that quoted definition once again:

"Music is an art form that involves organized and audible sounds and silence."

Note quite clearly that "organised" is an adjective forming part of the noun phrase with the head noun "sounds". Now check out your reply:

"so far so good, 4'33" was organized, and contained both audible sounds and silence."

Nice one. You managed to seperate organisation and audible sounds into two different things. Turned an adjective into a noun. Changed the fucking semantics of the entire sentence. And what amuses me greatly is you've admitted in your next post that:

"i didn't claim the sounds are organised"

So what you've actually done is argue against yourself with some conviction, based entirely on what is either slippery debating or a simple mistake. Either way, it shows to me you're pretty much arguing a vaguely philosphical issue for the sake of it here, which is my cue to quit this discussion.


indeed you are correct, i made a mistake, however i'm not arguing against myself, rather, against what you perceived my position on that particular issue to be.

and why is philosophy for philosophy's sake your cue to leave?


Posted by SYSTEM-J on Feb-17-2007 13:37:

That isn't why I'm leaving. Your aim was to prove that 4.33 fits with the definition of music given in this thread. You read it wrong and tried to prove that it fits a completely different definition, in the process arguing against the actual definition. To me, that simply shows you don't have a predetermined argument or perspective at all, you simply want to defend the piece against anything that comes up. Hence argument for its own sake, which will go nowhere.


Posted by PETRAN on Feb-17-2007 13:43:

quote:
Originally posted by Psy-T
by using generalisations rather than absolutes.



Ok, please sir state some generalisations that tend to occur (in you and others). Even "generalisations" are objective aren't they?


quote:
there can be no objective difference between something defined only subjectively and anything else, therefore, yes.



No. See last paragraphs



quote:
'nature' uses more than a random algorithm


Ok, it uses more then ONE random algorithm...


quote:
why is consciousness required for art?



Because one has to experience something in order to create something.

wikipedia's definition

Art is that which is made with the primary intention of stimulating the human senses as well as the human mind or spirit.

An artwork is assessed by means of the amount of stimulation it brings about. The impact it has on people, the amount of people that can relate, the degree of their appreciation, and the effect or influence it has or has had in the past, all accumulate to the 'degree of art'. Timeless masterpieces in art all possess these aspects to a great extent


Oh look there is the word "intention" in there...

quote:
if everything can be music then music can be anything.. that's the way it usually works with subjective terms


it doesn't change it a lot. Even in the "can be" case there must be some subjective criteria for "can be" or else everything will fall apart and could well be cosidered as music!


You had first stated that organised sound is music, then you went on to an organised band is a music, you previously stated that there are some "generalisations" of music (so its not subjective)and also sayed anything can be music. You seem very confused yourself!


quote:
if there's no rhythm how do all the players know when to turn their notation pages?



Its called perception of time."Temporal Estimation". Do you hold a rhythm with the spoon in order to accurately boil the spaghetti? Plus there wasn't any audible rhythm. "rhythm" has to be associated with vibration in the air-yes you understood well. Sound. Not just any form of counting.

quote:
you perceive 4/4 kick drum patterns (at static tempo) as melodies? awesome!


Ermmm didn't get that. What i meant was in order to have music we need melody and rhythm and that 4'33" didn't have rhythm. Simple as that.


quote:
.....music is a subjective term.



How then one knows that creates music then? Is it because he simply believes it? Can i state that i make music by posting in TA? Or there are some generalisations?


quote:
every human in the world potentially has every 'fuctional attribute'.


Yes, but the in the example you've stated "believing that earth is flat" is NOT a potentially pre-determined functional attribute but an acquired belief that is subject to change in space and time. Music is not, at least not until now.

quote:
seeing as you put an arbitrary limit on what can and can not be music, you should say it's what you see in the world, not what the world shows you.


Yes, it is what i see, you see, everyone sees. If that was not the case theres should be no fucking science! This is not about argumentum ad verecundiam and argumentum ad populum this is what statistically tends to occur. That is all humans in bloody earth have music, regardless of how i see it.

quote:
as long as you say anything other than X can not be music, obviously you're not gonna see anything other than X as being music. surprised?


I'm not sure i get that. I sayed that music, that is organised sound, had invariantly occured in all civilisations. This means that the product of this invariant (e.g. instruments, types of playing music etc.) may be subject to change but the "process of producing organised sound" is not. Simple as that.


quote:
replying to that will take us on a vastly different direction and imo we have enough aspects to this discussion as it is, so unless you insist, i'll ignore it.


In order for every human to produce language or music he/she must have some genetic structures that make-up the neural networks responsible for them.This is why other primates don't understand music. They simply don't have the brain-structures for it. (except for some higher ones which have elaborate communication such as monkeys, as well as some other animas such as dolphins which have a limited understanding. Is it a coincidence that music perception and production tends to occur with language and communication?) This wouldn't necessarely mean that "the genes made me a musician" but that my genes "produced the music-related neural-networks which, under conditions of suficient learning, they
get more integrated and efficient and hence can make me better in understanding music and even producing music".

This is a potential explanation of why music is invariantly expressed in human history, why there is a "deep structure" of music, a "deep structure" that invariantly defines music as "organised sound that exhibits rhythm and melody". "Music" (as organised sound that exhibits rhythm and melody) may have served processes of "sexual selection" in an early hominid and hence, mutations in genes which are responsible for producing the correspondent music-related auditory, semantic and motor neural networks would have been selected. This would predict the following:


1)There would be an implicit recognition of what constitutes music-that is organised sound in time with rhtyhm and melody- in comparison to what constitudes sounds and noises, without the need of explicit learning. E.g. an infant would tend to respond (affective physiological responses, eye-gaze, expression,)to music differently in comparison to noise and sounds. This is what occurs!(There is even evidence that infants respond to MUSIC in their mothers belly)


2)Individuals would tend to listen to music that is more organised in comparison to simple noise (and i don't mean "power-noise" here lol) since it would correspond more to the selected music-related neural networks which are present in each one of us(but to a different degree). Of course due to memetic cultural reasons, there would be statistical minorities. Its true that humans are not only genetically determined by their genes but by their environments. Even in that case, this majority would be closer to the more "organised sound" spectrum.


3) Individuals with a strong expression of the current gene would tend to implicitly recognise and produce music-as organised sound in time with melody and rhythm- with relatively low conscious effort and at a relatively early age without the need of extensive learning.This is what happens and everyone knows what mozart was acheaving before 10.This would be impossible if music was purely the product of learning. It would also predict that (as language), there would be critical periods in which music-learning would be proportionally musch easier in comparison to other periods. It has been shown that music-learning is much more efficient when it occurs at an early age.


Is this what REALITY tells us?I would say a BIG YES and so the hell with the subjective bollocks!END.


Posted by thoughtlessjex on Feb-17-2007 17:02:

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Ok, it uses more then ONE random algorithm...

Maybe you mean arbitrary algorithm. The algorithms in nature are far from random. They're just more complex than the human mind can contemplate.

I'm not saying that the sounds in nature are music, though, unless one believes in a creator. They lack intention are otherwise. Natural sounds can be given intention, however, when given intention by a creator, they can fill my requirements for music.

quote:
Ermmm didn't get that. What i meant was in order to have music we need melody and rhythm and that 4'33" didn't have rhythm. Simple as that.

You're talking about 4'33" on paper. The music of 4'33" was in its performance. The electrical hum; the blood pumping in your ears; the guy who was too ill to attend, but didn't want to waste his tickets; the concert hall settling. These all have rhythm given intention by a creator. They affect you and have an aesthetic quality to them. So why can't they be music?

quote:
In order for every human to produce language or music he/she must have some genetic structures that make-up the neural networks responsible for them. This is why other primates don't understand music. They simply don't have the brain-structures for it. (except for some higher ones which have elaborate communication such as monkeys, as well as some other animas such as dolphins which have a limited understanding. Is it a coincidence that music perception and production tends to occur with language and communication?) This wouldn't necessarely mean that "the genes made me a musician" but that my genes "produced the music-related neural-networks which, under conditions of suficient learning, they
get more integrated and efficient and hence can make me better in understanding music and even producing music".

This is a potential explanation of why music is invariantly expressed in human history, why there is a "deep structure" of music, a "deep structure" that invariantly defines music as "organised sound that exhibits rhythm and melody". "Music" (as organised sound that exhibits rhythm and melody) may have served processes of "sexual selection" in an early hominid and hence, mutations in genes which are responsible for producing the correspondent music-related auditory, semantic and motor neural networks would have been selected. This would predict the following:

1)There would be an implicit recognition of what constitutes music-that is organised sound in time with rhtyhm and melody- in comparison to what constitudes sounds and noises, without the need of explicit learning. E.g. an infant would tend to respond (affective physiological responses, eye-gaze, expression,)to music differently in comparison to noise and sounds. This is what occurs!(There is even evidence that infants respond to MUSIC in their mothers belly)

2)Individuals would tend to listen to music that is more organised in comparison to simple noise (and i don't mean "power-noise" here lol) since it would correspond more to the selected music-related neural networks which are present in each one of us(but to a different degree). Of course due to memetic cultural reasons, there would be statistical minorities. Its true that humans are not only genetically determined by their genes but by their environments. Even in that case, this majority would be closer to the more "organised sound" spectrum.

3) Individuals with a strong expression of the current gene would tend to implicitly recognise and produce music-as organised sound in time with melody and rhythm- with relatively low conscious effort and at a relatively early age without the need of extensive learning. This is what happens and everyone knows what mozart was acheaving before 10. This would be impossible if music was purely the product of learning. It would also predict that (as language), there would be critical periods in which music-learning would be proportionally musch easier in comparison to other periods. It has been shown that music-learning is much more efficient when it occurs at an early age.

Is this what REALITY tells us?I would say a BIG YES and so the hell with the subjective bollocks! END.

Yes. The ability to appreciate music can be learned. And the kinds of music that can be appreciated can be broad or narrow depending on exposure. Some people feel stimulated by the works of Tchaikovsky, others by Varese. Just because humans for the longest time were intolerant of the wide range of possibilities behind music doesn't mean that those things couldn't be music if given the proper intention.


Posted by Psy-T on Feb-18-2007 13:10:

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Ok, please sir state some generalisations that tend to occur (in you and others). Even "generalisations" are objective aren't they?


house, trance, electro, breaks, dnb, dub, ambient, lo-fi..... and music, as a generalization rather than an asbolute, i.e. "if X has charatristics Y & Z, it can usually be regarded as music" "if X lacks charataristics Y & Z, it usually can't be regarded as music".

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
No. See last paragraphs


didn't i already mention my disdain towards argumentum ad verecundiam & argumentum ad populum?

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Ok, it uses more then ONE random algorithm...


it uses a 'random' alogirthm followed by natural selection, survival of the fittest, there's nothing random about that 2nd part.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
it doesn't change it a lot. Even in the "can be" case there must be some subjective criteria for "can be" or else everything will fall apart and could well be cosidered as music!


and that subjective criteria exists, as clearly shown in this thread among many many others.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
You had first stated that organised sound is music, then you went on to an organised band is a music, you previously stated that there are some "generalisations" of music (so its not subjective)and also sayed anything can be music. You seem very confused yourself!


follow my last few exchanges with system j and you will notice i was arguing a mistake.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Its called perception of time."Temporal Estimation". Do you hold a rhythm with the spoon in order to accurately boil the spaghetti? Plus there wasn't any audible rhythm.


why would this composition have more than one page had tempo and rhythm not mattered?

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
"rhythm" has to be associated with vibration in the air-yes you understood well. Sound. Not just any form of counting.


definitions of rhythm, not all of which require sound or vibration in the air.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Ermmm didn't get that. What i meant was in order to have music we need melody and rhythm and that 4'33" didn't have rhythm. Simple as that.


" Every sound has a pitch, but i thought that in music, you need a kind of pitch that its physical wave-pattern corrsponds to what people perceive as melody! It seems i was wrong."

a kick has a pitch, but it doesn't have a physical wave-pattern which corresponds to what people perceive as melody (unless you consider a single repetative note to fit the definition for melody).

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
How then one knows that creates music then? Is it because he simply believes it? Can i state that i make music by posting in TA? Or there are some generalisations?

yes, you can.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by PETRAN
Yes, but the in the example you've stated "believing that earth is flat" is NOT a potentially pre-determined functional attribute but an acquired belief that is subject to change in space and time. Music is not, at least not until now.


fallacy, everything can potentially be anything.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Yes, it is what i see, you see, everyone sees. If that was not the case theres should be no fucking science! This is not about argumentum ad verecundiam and argumentum ad populum this is what statistically tends to occur. That is all humans in bloody earth have music, regardless of how i see it.


yet more than one person is arguing against that very point, in other words - another fallacy, not all humans on earth 'have music' like that.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
I'm not sure i get that. I sayed that music, that is organised sound, had invariantly occured in all civilisations. This means that the product of this invariant (e.g. instruments, types of playing music etc.) may be subject to change but the "process of producing organised sound" is not. Simple as that.


it meant exactly the same thing as the sentence perceeding it, just phrased differently.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
In order for every human to produce language or music he/she must have some genetic structures that make-up the neural networks responsible for them.This is why other primates don't understand music. They simply don't have the brain-structures for it.


source?

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
This is a potential explanation of why music is invariantly expressed in human history, why there is a "deep structure" of music, a "deep structure" that invariantly defines music as "organised sound that exhibits rhythm and melody".


incorrect, the definition for music in ancient greece (Plato's time) included a lot of things that you wouldn't accept under your definition.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
"Music" (as organised sound that exhibits rhythm and melody) may have served processes of "sexual selection" in an early hominid and hence, mutations in genes which are responsible for producing the correspondent music-related auditory, semantic and motor neural networks would have been selected. This would predict the following:


"sound" (or noise, if you wish) may have served processes of "sexual selection" in early hominids just as well.... "silence" may have done the same. in fact, it's more likely that both played a larger role in "sexual selection" than "music" did considering the direct predictions one could have made with both (more so than with music), and their higher relevancy towards staying alive.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Is this what REALITY tells us?I would say a BIG YES and so the hell with the subjective bollocks!END.


it would be what reality tells us if either:

  1. the argument wasn't about absolutes, or
  2. there weren't people disagreeing


Posted by Psy-T on Feb-18-2007 13:14:

quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
That isn't why I'm leaving. Your aim was to prove that 4.33 fits with the definition of music given in this thread. You read it wrong and tried to prove that it fits a completely different definition, in the process arguing against the actual definition. To me, that simply shows you don't have a predetermined argument or perspective at all, you simply want to defend the piece against anything that comes up.


that was only one of my aims, as you might see if you'd take a look at the exchanges between me and petran.

quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Hence argument for its own sake, which will go nowhere.


yes, an argument for its own sake, an argument in aesthetics, which is a branch of philosophy, in other words, philosophy for its own sake.

edit: corrected 'part' to 'branch'.


Posted by PETRAN on Feb-18-2007 15:33:

quote:
Originally posted by Psy-T
house, trance, electro, breaks, dnb, dub, ambient, lo-fi..... and music, as a generalization rather than an asbolute, i.e. "if X has charatristics Y & Z, it can usually be regarded as music" "if X lacks charataristics Y & Z, it usually can't be regarded as music".




So, its still objective! If you say that Y & Z is a pre-requisite for X then y & Z are fucking objective mate. They are generalisations but these generalisations are still objective criteria. If you say that trance must have pads,no matter how often pads occur, its still an objective criterion. It would only be subjective if you saied that"trance must have Y & Z and i responded "who cares for me trance has F & E".


quote:
didn't i already mention my disdain towards argumentum ad verecundiam & argumentum ad populum?



Because for the simple reason that they didn't occur, or maybe i was misinterpreted. These two fallacies state that when you use an argument such as: "most people believe that god exists" you then use this popular belief to prove a point. No such case here. I didn't mention what people believe or anyway that was not what i tried to say. What i sayed was that music-as organised sound had invariantly occured thorugh-out the history of mankind. It is not about what people believe, it is about what the whole population of the whole earth in the whole history of the earth tends to do. If i say that most people eat and hence you need food to survive would you say that i used these fallacies?

quote:
and that subjective criteria exists, as clearly shown in this thread among many many others



Yes subjective criteria about genres NOT about what music is. This is organised sound.Its an absolute. Rhythmn, Pitch , Texture can vary but they ALWAYS EXIST. They are Pre-requisites. Is that so difficult to understand?

quote:
why would this composition have more than one page had tempo and rhythm not mattered?


Who cares? there was no rhythm!

quote:
definitions of rhythm, not all of which require sound or vibration in the air.


It seems that under the sub-phrase "MUSIC", rhythm involves vibrations in the air...read before you post...

quote:
yet more than one person is arguing against that very point, in other words - another fallacy, not all humans on earth 'have music' like that.


What like that?Like organised rhythm and melody-like that yes!ALL PEOPLE IN THE BLOODY WORLD. Where is the bloody fallacy?


ALL HUMANS ON EARTH HAVE MUSIC AS ORGANISED SOUND WITH RHYTHM AND MELODY AND THEY ALWAYS HAD. END. I'm bored to pseudo-philosophically argue about FACTS. I mean its stupid. Don't you believe me? Read the article below. BUT READ IT for the love of baby jesus.

quote:
it meant exactly the same thing as the sentence perceeding it, just phrased differently.



No, dear god, no! I think i'm going to cry.

quote:
incorrect, the definition for music in ancient greece (Plato's time) included a lot of things that you wouldn't accept under your definition.


Please Inform me. I thought that ancient greeks hailed music the way i have stated.

quote:
"sound" (or noise, if you wish) may have served processes of "sexual selection" in early hominids just as well.... "silence" may have done the same. in fact, it's more likely that both played a larger role in "sexual selection" than "music" did considering the direct predictions one could have made with both (more so than with music), and their higher relevancy towards staying alive.



Read the article below.

quote:
the argument wasn't about absolutes, or


I've listed so many facts about how the basic definition of music as an absolute, but it seems that no one reads...I've stated about babies, about music's relation to language, about critical periods no one reads.Unfortunately not. If just people were reading and paying attention the world would be much better. All they do is endlessly argue like us now. Can you imagine the evangelists actually studying the biological evidence? They don't! They prefer to believe false ideas and even pseudo-logically argue (like us now) about things rather then just follow the truth,the facts, what is really out there.

quote:
there weren't people disagreeing



Oh, ok so if i argue that water is not made by H2O then water is not an absolute but a subjective entity?

And i'm not sure. Isn/t that errmm "circular resoning"? Music is subjective so we argue, and therefore because we argue its subjective?

I say enough is enough. This kind of soft-philosophy is good about abstract things but arguing about what music is and what is not is just plain stupid and it doesn't lead anywhere. So please read CAREFULLY (i beg you very carefully) the following article because it seems that you didn't care at all about the EVIDENCE i listed before...


Source:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/id...s_of_ourselves/


MUSIC IS ONE OF THE human species's relatively few universal abilities. Without formal training, any individual, from Stone Age tribesman to suburban teenager, has the ability to recognize music and, in some fashion, to make it.

Hmmmm it seems that people have pre-determined notions of musiccc

Why this should be so is a mystery. After all, music isn't necessary for getting through the day, and if it aids in reproduction, it does so only in highly indirect ways. Language, by contrast, is also everywhere -- but for reasons that are more obvious. With language, you and the members of your tribe can organize a migration across Africa, build reed boats and cross the seas, and communicate at night even when you can't see each other. Modern culture, in all its technological extravagance, springs directly from the human talent for manipulating symbols and syntax.


Although an evolutionary psychologist named Miller if i remember argues that music played a major role in sexual selection. What i sayed before wasn't out of my mind!

Scientists have always been intrigued by the connection between music and language. Yet over the years, words and melody have acquired a vastly different status in the lab and the seminar room. While language has long been considered essential to unlocking the mechanisms of human intelligence, music is generally treated as an evolutionary frippery -- mere "auditory cheesecake," as the Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker puts it.

So music as an evolutionary epiphenomenon or musis as the product of selection itself. Either way, it is PRE-DETERMINED.



But thanks to a decade-long wave of neuroscience research, that tune is changing. A flurry of recent publications suggests that language and music may equally be able to tell us who we are and where we're from -- not just emotionally, but biologically. In July, the journal Nature Neuroscience devoted a special issue to the topic. And in an article in the August 6 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, David Schwartz, Catherine Howe, and Dale Purves of Duke University argued that the sounds of music and the sounds of language are intricately connected.



To grasp the originality of this idea, it's necessary to realize two things about how music has traditionally been understood. First, musicologists have long emphasized that while each culture stamps a special identity onto its music, music itself has some universal qualities. For example, in virtually all cultures sound is divided into some or all of the 12 intervals that make up the chromatic scale -- that is, the scale represented by the keys on a piano. For centuries, observers have attributed this preference for certain combinations of tones to the mathematical properties of sound itself.


OH OH mine look what IT stated HERE...MUSIC AS UNIVERSAL...


Some 2,500 years ago, Pythagoras was the first to note a direct relationship between the harmoniousness of a tone combination and the physical dimensions of the object that produced it. For example, a plucked string will always play an octave lower than a similar string half its size, and a fifth lower than a similar string two-thirds its length. This link between simple ratios and harmony has influenced music theory ever since.

Oh Yes!

This music-is-math idea is often accompanied by the notion that music, formally speaking at least, exists apart from the world in which it was created. Writing recently in The New York Review of Books, pianist and critic Charles Rosen discussed the long-standing notion that while painting and sculpture reproduce at least some aspects of the natural world, and writing describes thoughts and feelings we are all familiar with, music is entirely abstracted from the world in which we live.

A-ha.


Neither idea is right, according to David Schwartz and colleagues. Human musical preferences are fundamentally shaped not by elegant algorithms or ratios but by the messy sounds of real life, and of speech in particular -- which in turn is shaped by our evolutionary heritage. Says Schwartz, "The explanation of music, like the explanation of any product of the mind, must be rooted in biology, not in numbers per se."

Oh, it seems That this what i sayed in my previous post...


Schwartz, Howe, and Purves analyzed a vast selection of speech sounds from a variety of languages to reveal the underlying patterns common to all utterances. In order to focus only on the raw sound, they discarded all theories about speech and meaning and sliced sentences into random bites. Using a database of over 100,000 brief segments of speech, they noted which frequency had the greatest emphasis in each sound. The resulting set of frequencies, they discovered, corresponded closely to the chromatic scale. In short, the building blocks of music are to be found in speech.

SOUNDS LIKE MUSIC IN MY EARS!LOL!


quote:
Far from being abstract, music presents a strange analog to the patterns created by the sounds of speech. "Music, like the visual arts, is rooted in our experience of the natural world," says Schwartz. "It emulates our sound environment in the way that visual arts emulate the visual environment." In music we hear the echo of our basic sound-making instrument -- the vocal tract. The explanation for human music is simpler still than Pythagoras's mathematical equations: We like the sounds that are familiar to us -- specifically, we like sounds that remind us of us.


Oh god MUSIC GOES OBJECTIVE!NOOOO!



This brings up some chicken-or-egg evolutionary questions. It may be that music imitates speech directly, the researchers say, in which case it would seem that language evolved first. It's also conceivable that music came first and language is in effect an imitation of song -- that in everyday speech we hit the musical notes we especially like. Alternately, it may be that music imitates the general products of the human sound-making system, which just happens to be mostly speech. "We can't know this," says Schwartz. "What we do know is that they both come from the same system, and it is this that shapes our preferences."


Can you stand this objectivity?


Schwartz's study also casts light on the long-running question of whether animals understand or appreciate music. Despite the apparent abundance of "music" in the natural world -- birdsong, whalesong, wolf howls, synchronized chimpanzee hooting -- previous studies have found that many laboratory animals don't show a great affinity for the human variety of music making.


I love animals.

Marc Hauser and Josh McDermott of Harvard argued in the July issue of Nature Neuroscience that animals don't create or perceive music the way we do. The fact that laboratory monkeys can show recognition of human tunes is evidence, they say, of shared general features of the auditory system, not any specific chimpanzee musical ability. As for birds, those most musical beasts, they generally recognize their own tunes -- a narrow repertoire -- but don't generate novel melodies like we do. There are no avian Mozarts.


Ermmm different brains?


But what's been played to the animals, Schwartz notes, is human music. If animals evolve preferences for sound as we do -- based upon the soundscape in which they live -- then their "music" would be fundamentally different from ours. In the same way our scales derive from human utterances, a cat's idea of a good tune would derive from yowls and meows. To demonstrate that animals don't appreciate sounds the way we do, we'd need evidence that they don't respond to "music" constructed from their own sound environment.

These objective statements about music...gosh...


No matter how the connection between language and music is parsed, what is apparent is that our sense of music, even our love for it, is as deeply rooted in our biology and in our brains as language is. This is most obvious with babies, says Sandra Trehub at the University of Toronto, who also published a paper in the Nature Neuroscience special issue.

MUSIC ROOTED IN OUR BIOLOGY. It reminds me of...What i sayed BEFORE ABOUT OBJECTIVE UNIVERSALS AGAIN...


For babies, music and speech are on a continuum. Mothers use musical speech to "regulate infants' emotional states," Trehub says. Regardless of what language they speak, the voice all mothers use with babies is the same: "something between speech and song." This kind of communication "puts the baby in a trance-like state, which may proceed to sleep or extended periods of rapture."So if the babies of the world could understand the latest research on language and music, they probably wouldn't be very surprised. The upshot, says Trehub, is that music may be even more of a necessity than we realize.


FOR BABIES MUSIC AND SPEECH ARE AT A CONTINUUM. MUSIC PUTS THE BABY IN A TRANCE LIKE STATE.MUSIC AS A PRE-DETERMINED FUNCTION.

Music. Organised sound with rhtyhm and melody. Music. Not Noise. Not Silence. Music.

SO...

BABIES HAVE IMPLICIT NOTIONS OF MUSIC-AS ORGANISED SOUND WITH RHYTHM AND MELODY. NO BLOODY LEARNING INVOLVED.



It was nice talking to you sir. At least up to a certain point...


Posted by SYSTEM-J on Feb-18-2007 15:49:

quote:
Originally posted by Psy-T
yes, an argument for its own sake, an argument in aesthetics, which is a branch of philosophy, in other words, philosophy for its own sake.


If philosophy is simply a matter of deciding which side you're on and then making up whatever arguments fit the current issue, then no wonder I have no stomach for philosophy.


Posted by Psy-T on Feb-18-2007 16:04:

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
So, its still objective! If you say that Y & Z is a pre-requisite for X then y & Z are fucking objective mate. They are generalisations but these generalisations are still objective criteria. If you say that trance must have pads,no matter how often pads occur, its still an objective criterion.


way to fucking twist my words around

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
It would only be subjective if you saied that"trance must have Y & Z and i responded "who cares for me trance has F & E".


and that's not the case? that's not what's fucking happening here? jesus

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Because for the simple reason that they didn't occur, or maybe i was misinterpreted. These two fallacies state that when you use an argument such as: "most people believe that god exists" you then use this popular belief to prove a point. No such case here. I didn't mention what people believe or anyway that was not what i tried to say. What i sayed was that music-as organised sound had invariantly occured thorugh-out the history of mankind. It is not about what people believe, it is about what the whole population of the whole earth in the whole history of the earth tends to do. If i say that most people eat and hence you need food to survive would you say that i used these fallacies?


err, no, i said that in reference to you giving me various bigwigs and articles and statements. when you try to address me with logic, i respond in kind. when you use such fallacies, i point them out.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Yes subjective criteria about genres NOT about what music is. This is organised sound.Its an absolute. Rhythmn, Pitch , Texture can vary but they ALWAYS EXIST. They are Pre-requisites. Is that so difficult to understand?


are you that dense? i'm arguing against you that music is not absolute, hence, it's as subjective as anything else. is that so difficult to understand?


quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Who cares? there was no rhythm!


good answer

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
It seems that under the sub-phrase "MUSIC", rhythm involves vibrations in the air...read before you post...


it also seems that under the sub-phrase "MUSIC", rhythm involves "The pattern of musical movement through time".

and under the definition for "MUSICAL", the main entry is "Of, relating to, or capable of producing music: a musical instrument.".

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
What like that?Like organised rhythm and melody-like that yes!ALL PEOPLE IN THE BLOODY WORLD. Where is the bloody fallacy?


right in front of you, at least virtually. get a pair of glasses.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
ALL HUMANS ON EARTH HAVE MUSIC AS ORGANISED SOUND WITH RHYTHM AND MELODY AND THEY ALWAYS HAD. END. I'm bored to pseudo-philosophically argue about FACTS. I mean its stupid. Don't you believe me? Read the article below. BUT READ IT for the love of baby jesus.


logic > capitalized text (and the inevitable larger font, which i hopefully pre-empted).

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Please Inform me. I thought that ancient greeks hailed music the way i have stated.


read Plato's Republic.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
I've listed so many facts about how the basic definition of music as an absolute, but it seems that no one reads...I've stated about babies, about music's relation to language, about critical periods no one reads.Unfortunately not. If just people were reading and paying attention the world would be much better. All they do is endlessly argue like us now. Can you imagine the evangelists actually studying the biological evidence? They don't! They prefer to believe false ideas and even pseudo-logically argue (like us now) about things rather then just follow the truth,the facts, what is really out there.


lmfao, the truth? the facts? hahaha
learn to comprehend what you read (and please, god, what you write aswell!)

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Oh, ok so if i argue that water is not made by H2O then water is not an absolute but a subjective entity?


no, but if you argue that water is not made by H20, perception of water is subjective. and isn't perception reality? (on second thought - please don't reply to this)

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
I say enough is enough. This kind of soft-philosophy is good about abstract things but arguing about what music is and what is not is just plain stupid and it doesn't lead anywhere. So please read CAREFULLY (i beg you very carefully) the following article because it seems that you didn't care at all about the EVIDENCE i listed before...


evidence you've listed before? i asked you 1 time, only once, for a source.
you did a good job there


i'll read your article when i wake up.


Posted by PETRAN on Feb-18-2007 16:54:

quote:
Originally posted by Psy-T
are you that dense? i'm arguing against you that music is not absolute, hence, it's as subjective as anything else. is that so difficult to understand?



Its useless. I don't care about bloody logic. I'm arguing with facts that you seem to ignore.Facts that clearly scream that music is absolute, music as organised sound with rhythm and melody. Read the article, read what i say in my previous post.

You may wish to say "ok these are the facts, but i don' like them". Fair enough. Its a whole different story though...


Posted by jupiterone on Feb-18-2007 17:44:

This thread has turned into like a presidential debate


This thread needs more cowbell.


Posted by Psy-T on Feb-19-2007 02:07:

i'm gonna take an antagonising stance here in this reply

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Source:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/id...s_of_ourselves/


let's just get to know our authorities for a second here first: the boston globe, the most widely circulated daily newspaper in boston, massachusetts, and Christine Kenneally, a freelance writer with a Ph.D in linguistics. lol.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
MUSIC IS ONE OF THE human species's relatively few universal abilities. Without formal training, any individual, from Stone Age tribesman to suburban teenager, has the ability to recognize music and, in some fashion, to make it.


false, most deaf people don't. not to mention the statement as a whole needs a source.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Hmmmm it seems that people have pre-determined notions of musiccc


argumentum ad verecundiam.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Why this should be so is a mystery. After all, music isn't necessary for getting through the day, and if it aids in reproduction, it does so only in highly indirect ways. Language, by contrast, is also everywhere -- but for reasons that are more obvious. With language, you and the members of your tribe can organize a migration across Africa, build reed boats and cross the seas, and communicate at night even when you can't see each other. Modern culture, in all its technological extravagance, springs directly from the human talent for manipulating symbols and syntax.

Although an evolutionary psychologist named Miller if i remember argues that music played a major role in sexual selection. What i sayed before wasn't out of my mind!


i didn't say it was, take some reading comprehension course.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Scientists have always been intrigued by the connection between music and language. Yet over the years, words and melody have acquired a vastly different status in the lab and the seminar room. While language has long been considered essential to unlocking the mechanisms of human intelligence, music is generally treated as an evolutionary frippery -- mere "auditory cheesecake," as the Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker puts it.


source?

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
So music as an evolutionary epiphenomenon or musis as the product of selection itself. Either way, it is PRE-DETERMINED.


argumentum ad verecundiam.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
But thanks to a decade-long wave of neuroscience research, that tune is changing. A flurry of recent publications suggests that language and music may equally be able to tell us who we are and where we're from -- not just emotionally, but biologically. In July, the journal Nature Neuroscience devoted a special issue to the topic. And in an article in the August 6 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, David Schwartz, Catherine Howe, and Dale Purves of Duke University argued that the sounds of music and the sounds of language are intricately connected.


what an astonishing discovery, too bad it's entirely redundant, seeing as language is defined as a system of signs, symbols, gestures, or rules used in communicating. is latin also equally as able to tell us who we are and where we're from as english is? amazing!

as for what Schwartz and co. argue, even if they're right, the very existence of the aformentioned link bears absolutely no relevancy to our discussion on its own.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
To grasp the originality of this idea, it's necessary to realize two things about how music has traditionally been understood. First, musicologists have long emphasized that while each culture stamps a special identity onto its music, music itself has some universal qualities. For example, in virtually all cultures sound is divided into some or all of the 12 intervals that make up the chromatic scale -- that is, the scale represented by the keys on a piano. For centuries, observers have attributed this preference for certain combinations of tones to the mathematical properties of sound itself.


  1. source?
  2. "...in virtually all cultures..." virtually meaning practically, or nearly? if practically, prove it. if nearly, you're the one who should be asking for a source, seeing as it decimates your argument.


quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
OH OH mine look what IT stated HERE...MUSIC AS UNIVERSAL...


argumentum ad verecundiam.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Some 2,500 years ago, Pythagoras was the first to note a direct relationship between the harmoniousness of a tone combination and the physical dimensions of the object that produced it. For example, a plucked string will always play an octave lower than a similar string half its size, and a fifth lower than a similar string two-thirds its length. This link between simple ratios and harmony has influenced music theory ever since.

Oh Yes!


quote:
Originally posted in a fictional journal
1+1=2


Oh Yes!

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
This music-is-math idea is often accompanied by the notion that music, formally speaking at least, exists apart from the world in which it was created. Writing recently in The New York Review of Books, pianist and critic Charles Rosen discussed the long-standing notion that while painting and sculpture reproduce at least some aspects of the natural world, and writing describes thoughts and feelings we are all familiar with, music is entirely abstracted from the world in which we live.

A-ha.


and how, pray tell, has he reached this conclusion?
a-ha? lol

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Neither idea is right, according to David Schwartz and colleagues. Human musical preferences are fundamentally shaped not by elegant algorithms or ratios but by the messy sounds of real life, and of speech in particular -- which in turn is shaped by our evolutionary heritage. Says Schwartz, "The explanation of music, like the explanation of any product of the mind, must be rooted in biology, not in numbers per se."


methodology?

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Oh, it seems That this what i sayed in my previous post...


you were arguing that our musical preferences are fundamentally shaped by 'the messy sounds of real life'?
where have you "sayed" this?

oh, and btw - argumentum ad verecundiam.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Schwartz, Howe, and Purves analyzed a vast selection of speech sounds from a variety of languages to reveal the underlying patterns common to all utterances. In order to focus only on the raw sound, they discarded all theories about speech and meaning and sliced sentences into random bites. Using a database of over 100,000 brief segments of speech, they noted which frequency had the greatest emphasis in each sound. The resulting set of frequencies, they discovered, corresponded closely to the chromatic scale. In short, the building blocks of music are to be found in speech.


unfounded conclusion. under the assumption that Schwartz and co.'s research is valid, it does not follow that the building blocks of music are to be found in speech. that requires a leap of faith.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
SOUNDS LIKE MUSIC IN MY EARS!LOL!


so go ahead and exclude anything not included in the chromatic scale from the definition of music.

and as usual with your quotes: argumentum ad verecundiam.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Far from being abstract, music presents a strange analog to the patterns created by the sounds of speech. "Music, like the visual arts, is rooted in our experience of the natural world," says Schwartz. "It emulates our sound environment in the way that visual arts emulate the visual environment." In music we hear the echo of our basic sound-making instrument -- the vocal tract. The explanation for human music is simpler still than Pythagoras's mathematical equations: We like the sounds that are familiar to us -- specifically, we like sounds that remind us of us.

Oh god MUSIC GOES OBJECTIVE!NOOOO!


you're an absolute fucking idiot, we like sounds that remind us of us? and what if silence is what reminds us of us? what if disharmonic, non-chromatic noise reminds us of us? nice objectivity.
+argumentum ad verecundiam.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
This brings up some chicken-or-egg evolutionary questions. It may be that music imitates speech directly, the researchers say, in which case it would seem that language evolved first. It's also conceivable that music came first and language is in effect an imitation of song -- that in everyday speech we hit the musical notes we especially like. Alternately, it may be that music imitates the general products of the human sound-making system, which just happens to be mostly speech. "We can't know this," says Schwartz. "What we do know is that they both come from the same system, and it is this that shapes our preferences."

Can you stand this objectivity?


absolute, fucking, idiot.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Schwartz's study also casts light on the long-running question of whether animals understand or appreciate music. Despite the apparent abundance of "music" in the natural world -- birdsong, whalesong, wolf howls, synchronized chimpanzee hooting -- previous studies have found that many laboratory animals don't show a great affinity for the human variety of music making.


source?

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
I love animals.


argumentum ad verecundiam.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Marc Hauser and Josh McDermott of Harvard argued in the July issue of Nature Neuroscience that animals don't create or perceive music the way we do. The fact that laboratory monkeys can show recognition of human tunes is evidence, they say, of shared general features of the auditory system, not any specific chimpanzee musical ability. As for birds, those most musical beasts, they generally recognize their own tunes -- a narrow repertoire -- but don't generate novel melodies like we do. There are no avian Mozarts.


not according to the abstract, they didn't.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Ermmm different brains?


yes? and?

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
But what's been played to the animals, Schwartz notes, is human music. If animals evolve preferences for sound as we do -- based upon the soundscape in which they live -- then their "music" would be fundamentally different from ours. In the same way our scales derive from human utterances, a cat's idea of a good tune would derive from yowls and meows. To demonstrate that animals don't appreciate sounds the way we do, we'd need evidence that they don't respond to "music" constructed from their own sound environment.

These objective statements about music...gosh...


this isn't even argumentum ad verecundiam, seeing as the quoted segment says nothing of the sort

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
No matter how the connection between language and music is parsed, what is apparent is that our sense of music, even our love for it, is as deeply rooted in our biology and in our brains as language is. This is most obvious with babies, says Sandra Trehub at the University of Toronto, who also published a paper in the Nature Neuroscience special issue.

MUSIC ROOTED IN OUR BIOLOGY. It reminds me of...What i sayed BEFORE ABOUT OBJECTIVE UNIVERSALS AGAIN...


r-e-a-d-i-n-g c-o-m-p-r-e-h-e-n-s-i-o-n, say it with me.
+argumentum ad verecundiam.

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
For babies, music and speech are on a continuum. Mothers use musical speech to "regulate infants' emotional states," Trehub says. Regardless of what language they speak, the voice all mothers use with babies is the same: "something between speech and song." This kind of communication "puts the baby in a trance-like state, which may proceed to sleep or extended periods of rapture."So if the babies of the world could understand the latest research on language and music, they probably wouldn't be very surprised. The upshot, says Trehub, is that music may be even more of a necessity than we realize.


source?
+leap of faith

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
FOR BABIES MUSIC AND SPEECH ARE AT A CONTINUUM. MUSIC PUTS THE BABY IN A TRANCE LIKE STATE.MUSIC AS A PRE-DETERMINED FUNCTION.


leap of faith.
+argumentum ad verecundiam

but on second thought, since you capitalized it all, i guess i must yield.. i mean.. c'mon, how can one not bow at the sight of capitalized letters?

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Music. Organised sound with rhtyhm and melody. Music. Not Noise. Not Silence. Music.


not noise? not silence? how do you know, did you see a research they did on that subject too? or did you read another publication from the boston globe?

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
SO...

BABIES HAVE IMPLICIT NOTIONS OF MUSIC-AS ORGANISED SOUND WITH RHYTHM AND MELODY. NO BLOODY LEARNING INVOLVED.


experiencing = learning.





i should have just stamped that whole article and your responses to it in particular with a huge red "ARGUMENTUM AD VERECUNDIAM".

nice facts you got there.


Posted by Psy-T on Feb-19-2007 02:08:

quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Its useless. I don't care about bloody logic. I'm arguing with facts that you seem to ignore.Facts that clearly scream that music is absolute, music as organised sound with rhythm and melody. Read the article, read what i say in my previous post.

You may wish to say "ok these are the facts, but i don' like them". Fair enough. Its a whole different story though...


without logic you don't have facts, cretin.


Posted by Sunsnail on Feb-19-2007 02:27:

I agree with PETRAN. Psy-t is full of shit. You don't need logic to use facts, moran.


Posted by LazFX on Feb-19-2007 04:21:

[CHIME]


Posted by PETRAN on Feb-19-2007 05:21:

Woow


Newton sayed F= M x A.


Argumentum as verecumdiam

Einstein sayed E= M X C.

Argumentum ad verecundiam

Darwin sayed that if you have variety, heredity and limited resources you get selection and evolution

Argumentum ad verecundiam.


Oh, what the fuckkkk, so all scientists who quote other scientists in their journals use argumentum ad verecundiam. Its not about beliefs. Its about facts YOU cretin. If i state that some scientists found in an experiment a specific result i don't use argumentum ad verecundiam. I would have used it if i stated that a scientist BELIEVED that this is the case and hence due to his/her authority i support him.


And what is this bloody "source" you keep stating all the time? What is this trash? Its the same journal FGS. Its fucking scientific its based on experiments. Are you so dumb? I just make a statement for fun after each paragraph.


And there is a connection between music and language one but obviously you don't have a clue what is it because your education ends at high-school where you took a philosophy course and learned what fucking "argumentums" are. In order to produce language and music, one has to have a complex sequential system in order to produce an orchestrated and controlled sequence of sounds and pauses at the right time and in the right place. In adition, because the information would be based on the nature of sounds, the pitch and the rhythm should be directly related, since the nature of the information depends on this process. Prosody is another thing that is directly related.

But it seems your logic failed you and you couldn't see behind the "symbols".


There is a whole book called the "BIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF MUSIC" by Zatorre.



http://books.google.com/books?hl=en...nguage#PPA28,M1


Another whole book called

The Origins of Music


http://books.google.com/books?hl=en...nguage#PPA29,M1



Other sources:

A paper called on the relationship of music and language

There are tones of research papers on experimental psychology, ethology, neuroscience and behavioural genetics on the biological bases of music and its relationships to early age and language. Perhaps a search would convince you.



There is a whole field called "Biomusicology". And if we have bloody "Biomusicology" we should have a pre-determined notion of music.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomusicology

Biomusicology is the study of music from a biological point of view. The term was coined by Wallin (1991). Music is an aspect of the behaviour of the human and possibly other species. As humans are living organisms, the scientific study of music is therefore part of biology, thus the "bio" in "biomusicology".

Biomusicologists are expected to have completed formal studies in both biology or other experimental sciences and musicology including music theory. The three main branches of biomusicology are evolutionary musicology, neuromusicology, and comparative musicology. Evolutionary musicology studies the "origins of music, the question of animal song, selection pressures underlying music evolution," and "music evolution & human evolution." Neuromusicology studies the "brain areas involved in music processing, neural and cognitive processes of musical processing," and "ontogeny of musical capacity and musical skill." Comparative musicology studies the "functions and uses of music, advantages and costs of music making," and "universal features of musical systems and musical behavior." (Brown, Merker, Wallin 2000, p.5f1.1)

Applied biomusicology "attempts to provide biological insight into such things as the therapeutic uses of music in medical and psychological treatment; widespread use of music in the audiovisual media such as film and television; the ubiquitous presence of music in public places and its role in influencing mass behavior; and the potential use of music to function as a general enhancer of learning." (ibid, p.6)

Zoomusicology, as opposed to anthropomusicology, is most often biomusicological, and biomusicology is often zoomusicological.

Biomusicology is also the title of the first track on Ted Leo's 2001 album The Tyranny of Distance.







Here's another one. Evolutionary musicology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_musicology


Musilanguage is a term coined by Steven Brown to describe a theory that music and language have a common ancestor.
It is both a model of musical and linguistic evolution and a term coined to describe a certain stage in that evolution. Brown states that both music and human language have origins in a phenomenon known as the "musilanguage" stage of evolution. This model represents the view that the structural features shared by music and language are not the results of mere chance parallelism, nor are they a function of one system emerging from the other�indeed, this model asserts that "music and language are seen as reciprocal specializations of a dual-natured referential emotive communicative precursor, whereby music emphasizes sound as emotive meaning and language emphasizes sound as referential meaning."[2]

The musilanguage model is a structural model of music evolution, meaning that it views music�s acoustic properties as effects of homologous precursor functions. This can be contrasted with functional models of music evolution, which view music�s innate physical properties to be determined by its adaptive roles.

Musilanguage hinges on the idea that sound patterns produced by humans fall at varying places on a single spectrum of acoustic expression. At one end of the spectrum, we find semanticity and lexical meaning, whereby completely arbitrary patterns of sound are used to convey a purely symbolic meaning that lacks any emotional content. This is called the "sound reference" end of the spectrum. At the other end of the spectrum are sound patterns that convey only emotional meaning and are devoid of conceptual and semantic reference points. This is the "sound emotion" side of the spectrum.

In actual fact, both of these endpoints are theoretical in nature, and music is seen as falling more towards the latter end of the spectrum, while human language falls more towards the former. As we can easily witness, music and language often combine to utilize this spectrum in unique ways; musical narratives that lack clearly defined meaning, such as those of the band Sigur R�s, where the vocal element is in a made-up language, fall more on the "sound emotion" end of the spectrum, while lexical narratives like stories or news articles that have a greater amount of semantic content will fall more towards the "sound reference" end of the spectrum. It should be noted here that language emphasizes sound reference and music emphasizes sound emotion, but that language cannot be completely devoid of sound emotion any more than music can be completely devoid of sound reference. The emphasis is different in music than in language, but both are evolutionary subcategories of the musilanguage stage of evolution, which intertwines sound reference and sound emotion much more tightly.





So, insted of calling me an "absolute fucking idiot" ,and istead of wrongly using "argumentum ad verecundiam" as your only argument (the philosopher who invented the term must taking a roll on his grave right now) stop reading your high-school philosophy, educate yourself a bit of what science is and what facts are , and we talk again (oh yeah, and learn what argumentum ad verecundiam is).


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