First posted on Mark Is Cranky:
A bunch of years ago, I went on a serious Captain Beefheart jag. Trout Mask Replica was fed through my ears on a daily basis. My officemate at the time, spying the CD's bizarre cover art (yes, that was a real fish boys 'n girls), become interested in what was going on inside my headphones. I offered an overnight loan ("spread the word", I was thinking).
The next morning I arrived late to work to discover the Beefheart CD on my chair, affixed with a short Post-It note:
- This Is Not Music
Well, that certainly left no room for debate!
Seriously though, it's fairly easy to hear why Trout Mask isn't for everybody. In fact, there's a whole world of music with limited appeal that I like to refer to as 'difficult listening'. That categorization for me has always pushed forward the mystery of why things sound 'good'. That's a giant problem best left for another essay. A more basic question might be: what is music?
Dictionary definitions tend to bring up melody, harmony and rhythm, all of which are categories of organized sound. Folks in the West like to think that melody is the most important aspect of music (read: if there's no melody, it's not music). This 'rule' leads to heated debate (OK, shouting matches) about the musical validity of certain forms. Rap music takes the most heat here.
After years of pouring (maybe too much) music into my head, I've come to the conclusion that none of the "big three" are necessary for sound to be music. Nosir. Instead, it's closer to the following dictionary entry:
- An aesthetically pleasing or harmonious sound or combination of sounds: the music of the wind in the pines.
Think of it as: perceive it as music...and it is. I'll admit that this is a sort of over-intellectualized stance (go ahead, call it eggheaded) but if it was good enough for people like John Cage and Frank Zappa then it works for me.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - BRICKLAYER
Cattle Decapitation!
2 - Eric Olsen
rhythm and noise, my friend
3 - Vern Halen
Trout Mask - music. The jury's still out on Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed, though. It's got noise, but no rhythm.
4 - Douglas Mays
Long ago I remember a definition of music that I heard somewhere that music is "organized sounds". I like that one. Like standing on the corner in the city. Cars and buses racing by on schedule in time with the traffic lights. The sound of the construction of a building with the pounding rhythms of machinery. And the layers of sound go on.
Music is all around us, I guess.
5 - Eric Olsen
oh, but the rhythm doesn't have to be overt
6 - Phillip Winn
The rhythm doesn't have to be pleasant either.
I like "organized sounds." Then again, I listen to Phish, so I'd prefer "Organized or semi-organized sounds."
7 - Duane
Very well written post, Mark. I can't imagine that anyone would disgaree strongly with your definition of music.
There's music in nature, I suppose. Birds, crickets, water, wind. thunder even, if you want to stretch a point. I would rather listen to traffic noise than most rap, country, church music, polka, 70s disco, well, most styles, actually.
Now, I think it would be more interesting to answer the question, What is good music?
8 - Mark Saleski
thanks duane. the 'good' music questoin opens up a whole 'nuther can of worms.
some people will think that there's a sort of objective set of criteria for that. i mean, it's obvious that, say, Brittney Spears is 'bad'....and then along comes somebody like Richard Thompson who plays "Oops I Did It Again" in his songs of the last 1000 years show. funny.
9 - gonzo marx
bah..the finest definition of Music i have ever heard of comes from Miles Davis
Miles sez..
"music is the space between notes"
nuff said?
Excelsior!
10 - Duane
And literature is the space between the words, I spose.
11 - gonzo marx
nah...Literature , since it is a static format, not a dynamic like music, is not defined by those "spaces", but instead by the totality
but thas a whole 'nother Discussion, eh?
i'll stick with Miles' definition...think about it a bit and hopefully you will understand why
thanks for the great Read in your Post...nice and tasty thoughts..
Excelsior!
12 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
excellent post, Mark. I don't know that i ever gave a lotta thought to it, other than thinking how some music is next to unlistenable, but it's still music. And i don't think i ever listened to Trout Mask in its entirity. Certainly he's a fine painter.
13 - Chris Beaumont
That is one of the best posts I have read recently. Puts a lot in perspective. It reminds me of when I was very anti-rap in my mid high school years, I did not think it was music. Back then I was a big metal guy and had a narrow definition of what music was, and it usually involved the playing of instruments. Then my father gave me the idea that if it had a rhythm and such, it is music (even though he detests rap) and my thought process changed. It is now similar to yours although I haven't given it as much thought as you.
14 - Tan Hoang
Nice one, Duane.
15 - godoggo
Categories are static but creativity isn't. It's the nature of creativity to push boundaries, to break rules, to defy categorization. So this kind of question gets raised about music, about literature, about art, about grammar, etc. ad naseum amen.
What I care about is profundity. Profundity and fun. No, what I care about is how it makes me feel. And think. And an almost fanatical devotion to the pope.
16 - Philip Dorrell
According to my super-stimulus theory of music (as described in my book, "What is Music? Solving a Scientific Mystery"), music is the super-stimulus for "musicality", where musicality is actually a perceived aspect of speech. Things like melody, rhythm and harmony are super-stimuli for the perception of musicality within individual aspects of speech perception (where musicality is always a secondary aspect). Thus each aspect of musicality may or may not appear in any particular item of music.
Variation in a super-stimulus between different people doesn't necessarily reflect significant variation in perception of the "normal" stimulus. For example, different people have different favourite foods, but the definition of "delicious" does relate to the requirements of good nutrition, and this relationship is a consequence of evolution by natural selection. Also there is still substantial agreement between what tastes nice for many people, and what tastes so bad that probably you shouldn't eat it at all.
17 - SFC SKI
I am willing to give anything a chance, but having downloaded and listened to the 3 Cattle Decapitation songs linked from their website, I really can't seee bricklayer's constant and unwavering mention of them to be anything more than the electronic equivalent of the drunk guy at any concert who yells "Freebird".
I just don't feel them.
18 - Mark Saleski
yea, brick's favorite does go over the line a little bit for me too! that's ok, i hear he cleanses his palette with The Carpenters. ;-)
19 - BRICKLAYER
Mortician!
20 - Phillip Winn
Ah, Mortician; a palette-cleanser to be sure!
21 - SFC SKI
The growly vocals remind me of Sesame Street's Grover on a lithium binge, and brings to mind the image of SCTV's Count Floyd saying, "ooh, scary stuff kids!"
22 - Mark Saleski
yea, i always refer that as "cookie monster vocals".
23 - Mark Saleski
According to my super-stimulus theory...
hmmm, i just might have to pick that book up.
24 - Eric Olsen
According to philosopher Suzanne Langer in her Philosophy In a New Key, musical structures are analagous to the structure of feelings. Music expresses, "just what is unspeakable in verbal language ... music can reveal the nature of feelings with a detail and truth that language cannot approach ... music is an abstraction of feelings as is algebra to arithmetic ... music sounds the way moods feel."
25 - SFC SKI
As the arbiter of what or is not music (you didn't get the e-mail?) I sometimes wonder iif peple listen to Cage, Stravinsky, or Stockhausen in public so they can feel cool by annoying people with the atonal squawking.