My Music Q&A

Music is defined by the wikipedia article in several different ways: organized sound, language, a subjective experience, a result of social construct, and a category of perception. The first three are most clear and understandable, the last two seem a little more abstract and difficult to grasp.

Music as organized sound is something that anyone who has played an instrument or sang a song, or even appreciated a musical work. A primary example of this would be orchestra music -- nothing seems to be more organized than that. Music as language, though a little abstract, is still understood. I have countless times felt as though music could say what I was feeling more than I ever could. Music is often said to “tell a story,” a selection of language that is not an accident. Music as a subjective experience is the theory that I most subscribe to. This thought is that what music is depends upon the individual listeners.

Music as a result of a social construct is a post-modern idea. Music is different across cultures, and in some languages there isn’t even a blanket word for music, and I feel that this is because it should not be blanketed. The use of a blanket term calls into question something that cannot really be answered or defined. Music as a category of perception is a study of the cognitive aspects of music. The Wiki article states “music is not merely the sound, or the perception of sound, but a means by which perception, action, and memory are organize.” Dance falls into this category, gestures guided by music.

After reading the article, I still feel strongly that music is a subjective thing, but it is also many other things: it is a result of social construct, to an extent; it is the organization of sound, to an extent; it is a cognitive experience; it is an offshoot of language. It is impossible to apply a general blanket definition to music, it is such a wiggly concept that there’s just no way to do it.


And my questions:
1. What’s the difference between music and noise?
2. Why do people listen to music, whatever they define it to be?


I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’ - Kurt Vonnegut

Earth Day

"People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle." -Thich Nhat Hanh

I thought that this quote was fitting of today, being Earth Day. It may not be entirely philosophically relevant, but, like I said, I thought it was fitting. This fits in a bit with my post yesterday regarding what music is. It's the same as miracles -- if you believe in miracles, you can see them everywhere.

~Lisa

We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should. - Kurt Vonnegut

boasas again

More webcomic posting about nationalism.

~Lisa

History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. - Kurt Vonnegut

Schweitzer and thoughts

Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter -- to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil. - Albert Schweitzer

I absolutely adore music, for this reason. What is music? we are asked. Music is what makes us happy. Music can come from instruments, or music can come from other things in the world. Music can be in the touch of a loved one, or the sound of a symphony. Music is what makes us feel better. Marx could just as easily had said "Music is the opiate of the masses." It's all a matter of what's pleasing to the individual, just like so many things in the world. Sorry if this doesn't please the nihilists or pessimists in the class, but this is my take on it. :)

~Lisa

Music makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it. - Kurt Vonnegut

my response to the meat-eating question....

Is it up to anyone to say that anything is morally right for a group of people other than themselves as an individual? If pressed to say whether or not it is morally right for the average US citizen to eat animals, I would have to say no. But that doesn’t mean that people should stop or are going to stop doing it.
I am a meat-eater, after being a vegetarian for about three years. I have thought several times about returning to the lifestyle, but it’s something I have a hard time doing. So instead, I do what Miller suggest, and eat meat “mindfully.” Does it make it right that I don’t eat the meat of animals that are kept in factory farms and slaughtered carelessly? No, but it eases my own consciousness a little bit.
Miller’s self-righteous article does not justify eating meat. It justifies it to himself, saying “as long as I eat meat that is treated humanely, I’m okay, because at least the animal didn’t suffer as much.” Just because the animal does not suffer as much does not mean that it does not suffer. I don’t really think that it makes a difference to the animal if it dies painfully, or if it dies humanely. Either way, the poor animal dies.

~Lisa

Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia. - Kurt Vonnegut

Murrow and some thoughts

The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow

This is kind of how I feel about our current subject: Music. I feel as though what music is is completely obvious, yet we still need to try and define it, and everyone's definitions are going to be different. So far in class we've come to semi-solid conclusions regarding pretty obscure things like time, the morality of eating animals, and the validity of our country's current occupation of Iraq. Yet here we are discussing something that has had and will continue to have an impact on every member of the class, as though it is something foreign to us. We are being asked to define music, as though it were a vocabulary word in junior high. I'm not questioning the validity of the assigned Q&A, I'm just saying that I find it a little amusing and feel as though this quote from Murrow speaks to the class' current situation.

What do you think?

~Lisa

The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music. - Kurt Vonnegut (of himself)

Blake and some thoughts

To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower…hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour… - William Blake

I like this quote because I think it is the epitome of creativity, and creativity is creation, and creation is construction. I like the idea of constructing my reality based upon the world seen in a grain of sand.

I initially took this class because I thought it would deal more with things like this. Focusing on how we are responsible for our own worlds, our own lives. I will say that I am a little disappointed. Oh well, I'm gone in 31 days, so I guess it's not too bad.

~Lisa

Life happens too fast for you to ever think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information. - Kurt Vonnegut