Hacker News Reader

Comment by nugi | Hacker News Reader

I would argue you are woefully wrong. Much great music is made of sounds only fleetingly able to be considered 'intentional'.

A noise that conveys a feeling, no matter that feeling, is music.

Sure, I don't sit around jamming to John Cage, but I similarly feel vaugely ambivilant about much pop music. Is it any different? Much good hiphop is atonal, much jazz does not repeat, and much popular techno has but a faint hint of "humanity". And yet they are not just music, but wildly popular styles. there are few qualifiers you can put on music, art, etc. without drifting dangerously into 'I know it when I see it' territory.

View on HN

It’s certainly true you can find musical qualities in almost any noise, but “music” by definition is a purposeful structure or arrangement of sounds to convey an idea or emotion.

That is not to say that all music must follow some prescribed form or another, but the distinction between sound and music is, at a minimum, structure and intent.

And it is also possible to intentionally structure some sounds in a way as to be not music, or unmusic, which is the impression I get listening to Four Organs.

Structured noise can certainly evoke an emotion — in this case for instance, confusion and disgust, and likely this is intentional. It may be an artform but I don’t think the noise is meant to be musical so much as it is meant to provocate.

> And it is also possible to intentionally structure some sounds in a way as to be not music, or unmusic, which is the impression I get listening to Four Organs.

This is artwork, and your impression is largely irrelevant.

This sentiment that it's too simple or too unintentional reminds me of how I felt when I was 12 and laid eyes upon Clyfford Still's 1951-52 at the Chicago Art Institute. It didn't seem like art to me at the time, but now I see that it is- and that I don't get to define what art is or isn't.

Hah, as artwork the only thing that is relevant is our personal impressions! My impression may not be relevant to you and vice verse, but who cares?

I never said it wasn’t performance art through noise. It’s definitely performance art through noise.

It’s just that if there is any meaning to the word “music” above and beyond “structured noise” then I’m not sure this hits the bar.

@jedimastert commented below that in fact it was precisely this threshold which the artist was exploring in this piece, so instead of foreclosing on the discussion outright as somehow diminishing their work, maybe appreciate that there’s an interesting question here which actually isn’t just a matter of “turn off that god awful noise!”

>And it is also possible to intentionally structure some sounds in a way as to be not music, or unmusic

No it isn't.

Is Cage's 4'33" unmusic? Are the birds, tweeting birds songs, unmusic? I think you're confusing only musical styles that you recognize as music for the whole world of music we are surrounded by.

The birds are musical, and may be music to your ears (as in metaphorical music) but whether birdsong is literal music seems to be up for debate [1] unless a human records and samples it into such.

Cage is performance art certainly but not, IMO, music. Again it’s something certainly up for debate. [2] But such debate reminds me of a particular South Park episode based in SF.

[1] - http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=...

[2] - https://youtu.be/WTCVnKROlos

Reply on news.ycombinator.com