The mystery of music

If music is sounds...
If music is rythms...

What happens if you play Madonna's latest backward?
Same sounds, same rythms.
Then it is not enjoyable anymore.

But is it music?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The fundamental characteristic of music, to me, is that it compels you to listen. All you need for music is rhythm.

I realize that my initial use of "pleasurable" was probably wrong, so let me change it to "produces and emotion" but it does get complicated because certain sounds are particularly annoying but are not music.

I do not think rhythm is essential to music all that is required is a pattern.

Our brain has evolved to respond to patterns in sounds. Our love of music is a side effect of this.
We respond to almost all music but respond stronger after we have heard it a number of times.
We also associate sounds with other experiences and that association applies to music too. Association also happens with smell. When I first came to South Africa, the smell of petrol kept giving me flashbacks to a time I visited the UK as a child - the same happens with the smell of cow-dung.

Originally posted by sonhouse
If it is to be called music, it will be pleasant to SOME people. If it were unpleasant to all humans, it would not be played, unless as a punishment. That has been done before,

i dont think the word pleasant is the right word to use in this context; take a hard rock back, or heavy metal band; energentic, alive, powerful.... but pleasant?

Originally posted by eatmybishop
i dont think the word pleasant is the right word to use in this context; take a hard rock back, or heavy metal band; energentic, alive, powerful.... but pleasant?

Lets try "desirable".

Originally posted by twhitehead
Lets try "desirable".

There are many kinds of music I find less than desirable -- Britney Spears, for instance, or Boys To Men -- but I wouldn't deny that they were music.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Our brain has evolved to respond to patterns in sounds.

What do you mean?

Originally posted by Palynka
I'm more interested in the forms of expression than the language itself. Although, obviously, having a word for it implies its existence. Still, which societies do you have in mind here?

The Inuit are said to lack a word for music.

Look into the etymology of music and see what you come up with.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
There are many kinds of music I find less than desirable -- Britney Spears, for instance, or Boys To Men -- but I wouldn't deny that they were music.

We're getting off track. Music exists because it's pleasurable to some. This obviously doesn't imply that everyone has to find it pleasurable (or 'desirable', although in this case I don't see the difference).

The question is that there may be different tastes and there may even exist some people that dislike all forms of music (melophobes?), but by and large humans like at music, even if they may restrict themselves to some types of it.

I think this is one of those cases that showcases the mind's capacity for fuzzy logic. We can identify millions of examples of music, some better than others, but there will always be examples that intersect with our core definition(s) just enough for us to feel like it should be called music without comprising all the elements we might be able to identify in our more solid examples.

However, one universal element of music is that it is the product of interpretation processes in the mind, and not the sound that enters your ear.

Originally posted by Palynka
We're getting off track. Music exists because it's pleasurable to some. This obviously doesn't imply that everyone has to find it pleasurable (or 'desirable', although in this case I don't see the difference).

The question is that there may be different tastes and there may even exist some people that dislike all forms of music (melophobes?), but by and l ...[text shortened]... rge humans like at music, even if they may restrict themselves to some types of it.

The purpose of art, including music, is not solely to please. For if it was, that would imply all art, including music, was sorely a form of entertainment. But the late piano sonatas of Beethoven are not entertainment in the way that Scott Joplin rags are entertainment; nor are they simply entertainment for the discerning few as opposed to the undiscerning many.

Describing the purpose of music as being solely entertainment does not suffice to characterize it. This is because art, including music, also edifies, and often without pleasing; indeed sometimes precisely by displeasing. What exactly music does to edify is difficult to characterize. Mysteriously, by representing something negative, it can provide consolation for what it represents.

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
The purpose of art, including music, is not solely to please. For if it was, that would imply all art, including music, was sorely a form of entertainment. But the late piano sonatas of Beethoven are not entertainment in the way that Scott Joplin rags are entertainment; nor are they simply entertainment for the discerning few as opposed to the undiscern ...[text shortened]... eriously, by representing something negative, it can provide consolation for what it represents.

I find the ability of music to edify vastly overrated. You'll care about the message only if you already agree to it in some extent. By overexposure, I would agree that it can radicalize ideas but, in my opinion, that's it.

Besides, I find it more interesting to discuss here the non-intellectual aspect of music, the sounds themselves, if you will, and not the lyrics.

Edit - I mean just to explain why I, personally, won't go deeper into your argument. I don't mean to say that your comment is misplaced or uninteresting to others because, obviously, I don't speak for them.

Originally posted by Palynka
I find the ability of music to edify vastly overrated. You'll care about the message only if you already agree to it in some extent. By overexposure, I would agree that it can radicalize ideas but, in my opinion, that's it.

Besides, I find it more interesting to discuss here the non-intellectual aspect of music, the sounds themselves, if you will, and not ...[text shortened]... comment is misplaced or uninteresting to others because, obviously, I don't speak for them.

I agree that, statistically, music may simply please more often than it complexly edifies.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Music is a series or mixture of sounds that creates a pleasant effect in the brain. It is usually rhythmic in nature.

No, it doesn't have to be. Music is intentional noise. There are no requirements that it has to be pleasant. Or rhythmic.

Steve Reich wrote songs that were the opposite of what you described, but they were music. http://media.hyperreal.org/zines/est/articles/reich.html and http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061106/schiff/2 were two articles written about his "Come Out and Show Them" piece.

Originally posted by scherzo
No, it doesn't have to be. Music is intentional noise. There are no requirements that it has to be pleasant. Or rhythmic.

Steve Reich wrote songs that were the opposite of what you described, but they were music. http://media.hyperreal.org/zines/est/articles/reich.html and http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061106/schiff/2 were two articles written about his "Come Out and Show Them" piece.

Or intentional silence, in the case of John Cage.

But there are surely atypical cases.