Definition of music
Encyclopedia
How to define music has long been the subject of debate; philosophers, musicians, and, more recently, various social and natural scientists have argued about what constitutes music
. The definition has varied through history, in different regions, and within societies. Definition
s vary as music, like art
, is a subjectively perceived phenomenon. Its definition has been tackled by philosophers of art, lexicographers
, composer
s, music critics, musician
s, semioticians
or semiologists, linguists
, sociologists, and neurologists. Music may be defined according to various criteria including organization, pleasantness, intent, social construction, perceptual processes and engagement, universal aspects or family resemblances, and through contrast or negative definition.
mousikê (tekhnê) by way of the Latin musica. It is ultimately derived from mousa, the Greek word for muse. In ancient Greece, the word mousike was used to mean any of the arts or sciences governed by the Muses. Later, in Rome, ars musica embraced poetry
as well as instrument-oriented music. In the European Middle Ages
, musica was part of the mathematical quadrivium
: arithmetic
s, geometry
, astronomy
and musica. The concept of musica was split into four major kinds by the fifth century philosopher, Boethius: musica universalis
, musica humana, musica instrumentalis, and musica divina. Of those, only musica instrumentalis referred to music as performed sound.
Musica universalis
or musica mundana referred to the order of the universe
, as God
had created it in "measure, number and weight". The proportions of the sphere
s of the planets and stars (which at the time were still thought to revolve around the earth) were perceived as a form of music, without necessarily implying that any sound
would be heard—music refers strictly to the mathematical proportions. From this concept later resulted the romantic idea of a music of the spheres. Musica humana, designated the proportions of the human body
. These were thought to reflect the proportions of the Heavens and as such, to be an expression of God's greatness. To Medieval thinking, all things were connected with each other—a mode of thought that finds its traces today in the occult sciences or esoteric thought—ranging from astrology
to believing certain minerals have certain beneficiary effects.
Musica instrumentalis, finally, was the lowliest of the three disciplines and referred to the manifestation of those same mathematical proportions in sound—be it sung or played on instruments. The polyphonic organization of different melodies to sound at the same time was still a relatively new invention then, and it is understandable that the mathematical or physical relationships in frequency
that give rise to the musical intervals as we hear them, should be foremost among the preoccupations of Medieval musicians.
and most North American Indian languages do not have a general term for music. Among the Aztecs, the ancient Mexican
theory of rhetorics, poetry, dance, and instrumental music, used the Nahuatl
term In xochitl-in kwikatl to refer a complex mix of music and other poetic verbal and non-verbal elements, and reserve the word Kwikakayotl (or cuicacayotl) only for the sung expressions (Leon-Portilla 2007, 11). In Africa
there is no term for music in Tiv
, Yoruba
, Igbo
, Efik
, Birom, Hausa
, Idoma
, Eggon
or Jarawa
. Many other languages have terms which only partly cover what Europeans mean by the term music (Schafer). The Mapuche
of Argentina
do not have a word for music, but they do have words for instrumental versus improvised forms (kantun), European and non-Mapuche music (kantun winka), ceremonial songs (öl), and tayil (Robertson 1976, 39).
Some languages in West Africa have no term for music but the speakers do have the concept (Nettl 1989,). Musiqi is the Persian
word for the science and art of music, muzik being the sound and performance of music (Sakata 1983), though some things European influenced listeners would include, such as Quran chanting, are excluded. Actually, there are varying degrees of "musicness"; Quran chanting and Adhan
is not considered music, but classical improvised song, classical instrumental metric composition, and popular dance music are.
However, most Indian languages have specific words that mean music or in some way denote it, for example 'Sangeeth' in Hindi
and 'Sangeetham' in Malayalam both mean music.
, is that it is "organized sound" (Goldman 1961, 133). The fifteenth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica describes that "while there are no sounds that can be described as inherently unmusical, musicians in each culture have tended to restrict the range of sounds they will admit."
"Organization" also seems necessary because it implies purposeful and thus human organization. This human organizing element seems crucial to the common understanding of music. Sounds produced by non-human agents, such as waterfalls or birds, are often described as "musical", but rarely as "music". See zoomusicology
.
Additionally, Schaeffer (1968, 284) describes that the sound of classical music "has decays; it is granular; it has attacks; it fluctuates, swollen with impurities—and all this creates a musicality that comes before any 'cultural' musicality." Yet the definition according to the esthesic level does not allow that the sounds of classical music are complex, are noises, rather they are regular, periodic, even, musical sounds. Nattiez (1990, 47—48): "My own position can be summarized in the following terms: just as music is whatever people choose to recognize as such, noise is whatever is recognized as disturbing, unpleasant, or both." (see "music as social construct" below)
context. According to this view, music is what people call music, whether it is a period of silence
, found sounds, or performance
. Cage, Kagel, Schnebel, and others, according to Nattiez (1987, 43), "perceive [certain of their pieces] (even if they do not say so publicly) as a way of "speaking" in music about music, in the second degree, as it were, to expose or denounce the institutional aspect of music's functioning."Cultural background is a factor in determining music from noise or unpleasant experiences. The experience of only being exposed to a particular type of music influences perception of any music. Cultures of European descent are largely influenced by music making use of the Diatonic scale
.
It might be added that as well as cultural background, historical era is also a determining factor in what is regarded as music. What would today be accepted as music in the west without the blinking of an eye, would have been ridiculed in the 17th century. Many people do, however, share a general idea of music. The Websters definition of music is a typical example: "the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity" (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, online edition). There are a number of potential objections to such a definition.
The composer John Cage
challenged traditional ideas about music in his 4' 33", which is notated as three movements, each marked Tacet (that is, "do not play").
(1975, 43) also points out that "any element belonging to the total musical fact can be isolated, or taken as a strategic variable of musical production." Nattiez gives as examples Mauricio Kagel
's Con Voce [with voice], where a masked trio silently mimes playing instruments.
Following Wittgenstein, cognitive psychologist Eleanor Rosch
proposes that categories are not clean cut but that something may be more or less a member of a category (Rosch 1973, 328). As such the search for musical universals would fail and would not provide one with a valid definition (Levitin 2006, 136–39).
, Merleau-Ponty
, and Ricœur
, Thomas Clifton defines music as "an ordered arrangement of sounds and silences whose meaning is presentative
rather than denotative
. . . . This definition distinguishes music, as an end in itself, from compositional technique, and from sounds as purely physical objects." More precisely, "music is the actualization of the possibility of any sound whatever to present to some human being a meaning which he experiences with his body—that is to say, with his mind, his feelings, his senses, his will, and his metabolism" (Clifton 1983, 1). It is therefore "a certain reciprocal relation established between a person, his behavior, and a sounding object" (Clifton 1983, 10).
Clifton accordingly differentiates music from nonmusic on the basis of the human behavior involved, rather than on either the nature of compositional technique or of sounds as purely physical objects. Consequently, the distinction becomes a question of what is meant by musical behavior: "a musically behaving person is one whose very being is absorbed in the significance of the sounds being experienced." However, "It is not altogether accurate to say that this person is listening to the sounds. First, the person is doing more than listening: he is perceiving, interpreting, judging, and feeling. Second, the preposition 'to' puts too much stress on the sounds as such. Thus, the musically behaving person experiences musical significance by means of, or through, the sounds" (Clifton 1983, 2).
In this framework, Clifton finds that there are two things that separate music from nonmusic: (1) musical meaning is presentative, and (2) music and nonmusic are distinguished in the idea of personal involvement. "It is the notion of personal involvement which lends significance to the word ordered in this definition of music" (Clifton 1983, 3–4). This is not to be understood, however, as a sanctification of extreme relativism
, since "it is precisely the 'subjective' aspect of experience which lured many writers earlier in this century down the path of sheer opinion-mongering. Later on this trend was reversed by a renewed interest in 'objective,' scientific, or otherwise nonintrospective musical analysis. But we have good reason to believe that a musical experience is not a purely private thing, like seeing pink elephants
, and that reporting about such an experience need not be subjective
in the sense of it being a mere matter of opinion" (Clifton 1983, 8–9).
Clifton's task, then, is to describe musical experience and the objects of this experience which, together, are called "phenomena," and the activity of describing phenomena is called "phenomenology" (Clifton 1983, 9). It is important to stress that this definition of music says nothing about aesthetic standards.
/entertainment
, is a total social fact whose definitions vary according to era
and culture
," according to Jean Molino
(1975, 37). It is often contrasted with noise. According to musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez
: "The border between music and noise is always culturally defined—which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place; in short, there is rarely a consensus.... By all accounts there is no single and intercultural universal concept defining what music might be" (Nattiez 1990, 47–8 and 55). Given the above demonstration that "there is no limit to the number or the genre of variables that might intervene in a definition of the musical," (Molino, 1987, 42) an organization of definitions and elements is necessary.
Nattiez (1990, 17; see sign (semiotics)
) describes definitions according to a tripartite semiological scheme similar to the following:
There are three levels of description, the poietic, the neutral, and the esthesic:
Table describing types of definitions of music (Nattiez 1990, 46):
Because of this range of definitions, the study of music comes in a wide variety of forms. There is the study of sound and vibration
or acoustics
, the cognitive study of music, the study of music theory
and performance practice or music theory and ethnomusicology
and the study of the reception and history of music, generally called musicology
.
in "Towards a Metamusic" (chapter 7 of Xenakis 1971) defined music in the following way:
(Xenakis 1971, 181)
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
. The definition has varied through history, in different regions, and within societies. Definition
Definition
A definition is a passage that explains the meaning of a term , or a type of thing. The term to be defined is the definiendum. A term may have many different senses or meanings...
s vary as music, like art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
, is a subjectively perceived phenomenon. Its definition has been tackled by philosophers of art, lexicographers
Lexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
, composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
s, music critics, musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
s, semioticians
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
or semiologists, linguists
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, sociologists, and neurologists. Music may be defined according to various criteria including organization, pleasantness, intent, social construction, perceptual processes and engagement, universal aspects or family resemblances, and through contrast or negative definition.
Etymology
The word music comes from the GreekGreek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
mousikê (tekhnê) by way of the Latin musica. It is ultimately derived from mousa, the Greek word for muse. In ancient Greece, the word mousike was used to mean any of the arts or sciences governed by the Muses. Later, in Rome, ars musica embraced poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
as well as instrument-oriented music. In the European Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, musica was part of the mathematical quadrivium
Quadrivium
The quadrivium comprised the four subjects, or arts, taught in medieval universities, after teaching the trivium. The word is Latin, meaning "the four ways" , and its use for the 4 subjects has been attributed to Boethius or Cassiodorus in the 6th century...
: arithmetic
Arithmetic
Arithmetic or arithmetics is the oldest and most elementary branch of mathematics, used by almost everyone, for tasks ranging from simple day-to-day counting to advanced science and business calculations. It involves the study of quantity, especially as the result of combining numbers...
s, geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
, astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
and musica. The concept of musica was split into four major kinds by the fifth century philosopher, Boethius: musica universalis
Musica universalis
Musica universalis is an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies—the Sun, Moon, and planets—as a form of musica . This 'music' is not usually thought to be literally audible, but a harmonic and/or mathematical and/or religious concept...
, musica humana, musica instrumentalis, and musica divina. Of those, only musica instrumentalis referred to music as performed sound.
Musica universalis
Musica universalis
Musica universalis is an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies—the Sun, Moon, and planets—as a form of musica . This 'music' is not usually thought to be literally audible, but a harmonic and/or mathematical and/or religious concept...
or musica mundana referred to the order of the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
, as God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
had created it in "measure, number and weight". The proportions of the sphere
Sphere
A sphere is a perfectly round geometrical object in three-dimensional space, such as the shape of a round ball. Like a circle in two dimensions, a perfect sphere is completely symmetrical around its center, with all points on the surface lying the same distance r from the center point...
s of the planets and stars (which at the time were still thought to revolve around the earth) were perceived as a form of music, without necessarily implying that any sound
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...
would be heard—music refers strictly to the mathematical proportions. From this concept later resulted the romantic idea of a music of the spheres. Musica humana, designated the proportions of the human body
Human body
The human body is the entire structure of a human organism, and consists of a head, neck, torso, two arms and two legs.By the time the human reaches adulthood, the body consists of close to 100 trillion cells, the basic unit of life...
. These were thought to reflect the proportions of the Heavens and as such, to be an expression of God's greatness. To Medieval thinking, all things were connected with each other—a mode of thought that finds its traces today in the occult sciences or esoteric thought—ranging from astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
to believing certain minerals have certain beneficiary effects.
Musica instrumentalis, finally, was the lowliest of the three disciplines and referred to the manifestation of those same mathematical proportions in sound—be it sung or played on instruments. The polyphonic organization of different melodies to sound at the same time was still a relatively new invention then, and it is understandable that the mathematical or physical relationships in frequency
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...
that give rise to the musical intervals as we hear them, should be foremost among the preoccupations of Medieval musicians.
Translations
The languages of many cultures do not include a word for or that would be translated as music. InuitInuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
and most North American Indian languages do not have a general term for music. Among the Aztecs, the ancient Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
theory of rhetorics, poetry, dance, and instrumental music, used the Nahuatl
Nahuatl
Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...
term In xochitl-in kwikatl to refer a complex mix of music and other poetic verbal and non-verbal elements, and reserve the word Kwikakayotl (or cuicacayotl) only for the sung expressions (Leon-Portilla 2007, 11). In Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
there is no term for music in Tiv
Tiv language
The Tiv language is spoken by over 2 million people in Nigeria, with a few speakers in Cameroon. Most of the Language's Nigerian speakers are found in Benue State of Nigeria. The language is also widely spoken in the Nigerian States of Plateau, Taraba, Nasarawa as well as the FCT Abuja...
, Yoruba
Yoruba language
Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...
, Igbo
Igbo language
Igbo , or Igbo proper, is a native language of the Igbo people, an ethnic group primarily located in southeastern Nigeria. There are approximately 20 million speakers that are mostly in Nigeria and are primarily of Igbo descent. Igbo is a national language of Nigeria. It is written in the Latin...
, Efik
Efik language
Efik , also known as Riverain Ibibio, is the native language of the Efik people of Nigeria, where it is a national language. It is the official language of the Cross River State in Nigeria.The name Efik is also used for Ibibio-Efik....
, Birom, Hausa
Hausa language
Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people...
, Idoma
Idoma
The Idoma are an ethno-linguistic group that primarily inhabit lower and western areas of Benue State, Nigeria, and kindred groups can be found in Cross Rivers and Nasarawa States in Nigeria. The Idoma are closely related to the Igbo people. The Idoma language is classified in the Akweya subgroup...
, Eggon
Eggon language
Eggon is one of the Benue–Congo languages spoken in Nigeria.EggonTaken from the introduction to "A dictionary of Eggon", edited by Roger Blench...
or Jarawa
Jarawa language (Nigeria)
Jarawa is the most populous of the Bantoid Jarawan languages of eastern Nigeria.Dialects are:...
. Many other languages have terms which only partly cover what Europeans mean by the term music (Schafer). The Mapuche
Mapuche
The Mapuche are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina. They constitute a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who shared a common social, religious and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage. Their influence extended...
of Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
do not have a word for music, but they do have words for instrumental versus improvised forms (kantun), European and non-Mapuche music (kantun winka), ceremonial songs (öl), and tayil (Robertson 1976, 39).
Some languages in West Africa have no term for music but the speakers do have the concept (Nettl 1989,). Musiqi is the Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
word for the science and art of music, muzik being the sound and performance of music (Sakata 1983), though some things European influenced listeners would include, such as Quran chanting, are excluded. Actually, there are varying degrees of "musicness"; Quran chanting and Adhan
Adhan
The adhān is the Islamic call to prayer, recited by the muezzin at prescribed times of the day. The root of the word is meaning "to permit"; another derivative of this word is , meaning "ear"....
is not considered music, but classical improvised song, classical instrumental metric composition, and popular dance music are.
However, most Indian languages have specific words that mean music or in some way denote it, for example 'Sangeeth' in Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
and 'Sangeetham' in Malayalam both mean music.
Organized sound
An often-cited definition of music, coined by Edgard VarèseEdgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
, is that it is "organized sound" (Goldman 1961, 133). The fifteenth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica describes that "while there are no sounds that can be described as inherently unmusical, musicians in each culture have tended to restrict the range of sounds they will admit."
"Organization" also seems necessary because it implies purposeful and thus human organization. This human organizing element seems crucial to the common understanding of music. Sounds produced by non-human agents, such as waterfalls or birds, are often described as "musical", but rarely as "music". See zoomusicology
Zoomusicology
Zoomusicology is a field of musicology and zoology or more specifically, zoosemiotics. Zoomusicology is the study of the music of animals, or rather the musical aspects of sound or communication produced and received by animals....
.
Additionally, Schaeffer (1968, 284) describes that the sound of classical music "has decays; it is granular; it has attacks; it fluctuates, swollen with impurities—and all this creates a musicality that comes before any 'cultural' musicality." Yet the definition according to the esthesic level does not allow that the sounds of classical music are complex, are noises, rather they are regular, periodic, even, musical sounds. Nattiez (1990, 47—48): "My own position can be summarized in the following terms: just as music is whatever people choose to recognize as such, noise is whatever is recognized as disturbing, unpleasant, or both." (see "music as social construct" below)
Language
Many definitions of music implicitly hold that music is a communicative activity which conveys to the listener moods, emotions, thoughts, impressions, or philosophical, sexual, or political concepts or positions. "Musical language" may be used to mean style or genre, while music may be treated as language without being called such, as in Fred Lerdahl or others' analysis of musical grammar. Levi R. Bryant defines music not as a language, but as a marked-based, problem-solving method such as mathematics (Ashby 2004, 4).Subjective experience
This view of music is most heavily criticized by proponents of the view that music is a social construction (directly below), defined in opposition to "unpleasant" "noise", though this view may be subsumed in the one below in that a listener's idea of pleasant sounds may be considered socially constructed. A subjective definition of music need not, however, be limited to traditional ideas of music as pleasant or melodious. This approach to the definition focuses not on the construction but on the experience of music. Thus, music could include "found" sound structures—produced by natural phenomena or algorithms—as long as they are interpreted by means of the aesthetic cognitive processes involved in music appreciation. This approach permits the boundary between music and noise to change over time as the conventions of musical interpretation evolve within a culture, to be different in different cultures at any given moment, and to vary from person to person according to their experience and proclivities. It is further consistent with the subjective reality that even what would commonly be considered music is experienced as nonmusic if the mind is concentrating on other matters and thus not perceiving the sound's essence as music (Clifton 1983, 9).Social construct
Post-modern and other theories argue that, like all art, music is defined primarily by socialSocial
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...
context. According to this view, music is what people call music, whether it is a period of silence
Silence
Silence is the relative or total lack of audible sound. By analogy, the word silence may also refer to any absence of communication, even in media other than speech....
, found sounds, or performance
Performance
A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...
. Cage, Kagel, Schnebel, and others, according to Nattiez (1987, 43), "perceive [certain of their pieces] (even if they do not say so publicly) as a way of "speaking" in music about music, in the second degree, as it were, to expose or denounce the institutional aspect of music's functioning."Cultural background is a factor in determining music from noise or unpleasant experiences. The experience of only being exposed to a particular type of music influences perception of any music. Cultures of European descent are largely influenced by music making use of the Diatonic scale
Diatonic scale
In music theory, a diatonic scale is a seven note, octave-repeating musical scale comprising five whole steps and two half steps for each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps...
.
It might be added that as well as cultural background, historical era is also a determining factor in what is regarded as music. What would today be accepted as music in the west without the blinking of an eye, would have been ridiculed in the 17th century. Many people do, however, share a general idea of music. The Websters definition of music is a typical example: "the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity" (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, online edition). There are a number of potential objections to such a definition.
The composer John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
challenged traditional ideas about music in his 4' 33", which is notated as three movements, each marked Tacet (that is, "do not play").
Musical universals
Often a definition of music lists the aspects or elements that make up music under that definition. However, in addition to a lack of consensus, Jean MolinoJean Molino
Jean Molino is professeur ordinaire at the University of Lausanne and a semiologist. His students include Jean-Jacques Nattiez.-Bibliography:*Musical Fact and the Semiology of Music, trans. J. A. Underwood, Music Analysis 9/2 : 113-156....
(1975, 43) also points out that "any element belonging to the total musical fact can be isolated, or taken as a strategic variable of musical production." Nattiez gives as examples Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Kagel was a German-Argentine composer. He was notable for his interest in developing the theatrical side of musical performance .-Biography:...
's Con Voce [with voice], where a masked trio silently mimes playing instruments.
Following Wittgenstein, cognitive psychologist Eleanor Rosch
Eleanor Rosch
Eleanor Rosch is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in cognitive psychology and primarily known for her work on categorization, in particular her prototype theory, which has profoundly influenced the field of cognitive psychology...
proposes that categories are not clean cut but that something may be more or less a member of a category (Rosch 1973, 328). As such the search for musical universals would fail and would not provide one with a valid definition (Levitin 2006, 136–39).
Clifton
In his 1983 book, Music as Heard, which sets out from the phenomenological position of HusserlEdmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
, Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir...
, and Ricœur
Paul Ricoeur
Paul Ricœur was a French philosopher best known for combining phenomenological description with hermeneutic interpretation...
, Thomas Clifton defines music as "an ordered arrangement of sounds and silences whose meaning is presentative
Presentationism
Presentationism , a philosophical term used in various senses deriving from the general sense of the term presentation. According to G. F. Stout Presentationism (from Latin prae-esse, praesens, present), a philosophical term used in various senses deriving from the general sense of the term...
rather than denotative
Denotation
This word has distinct meanings in other fields: see denotation . For the opposite of Denotation see Connotation.*In logic, linguistics and semiotics, the denotation of a word or phrase is a part of its meaning; however, the part referred to varies by context:** In grammar and literary theory, the...
. . . . This definition distinguishes music, as an end in itself, from compositional technique, and from sounds as purely physical objects." More precisely, "music is the actualization of the possibility of any sound whatever to present to some human being a meaning which he experiences with his body—that is to say, with his mind, his feelings, his senses, his will, and his metabolism" (Clifton 1983, 1). It is therefore "a certain reciprocal relation established between a person, his behavior, and a sounding object" (Clifton 1983, 10).
Clifton accordingly differentiates music from nonmusic on the basis of the human behavior involved, rather than on either the nature of compositional technique or of sounds as purely physical objects. Consequently, the distinction becomes a question of what is meant by musical behavior: "a musically behaving person is one whose very being is absorbed in the significance of the sounds being experienced." However, "It is not altogether accurate to say that this person is listening to the sounds. First, the person is doing more than listening: he is perceiving, interpreting, judging, and feeling. Second, the preposition 'to' puts too much stress on the sounds as such. Thus, the musically behaving person experiences musical significance by means of, or through, the sounds" (Clifton 1983, 2).
In this framework, Clifton finds that there are two things that separate music from nonmusic: (1) musical meaning is presentative, and (2) music and nonmusic are distinguished in the idea of personal involvement. "It is the notion of personal involvement which lends significance to the word ordered in this definition of music" (Clifton 1983, 3–4). This is not to be understood, however, as a sanctification of extreme relativism
Relativism
Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration....
, since "it is precisely the 'subjective' aspect of experience which lured many writers earlier in this century down the path of sheer opinion-mongering. Later on this trend was reversed by a renewed interest in 'objective,' scientific, or otherwise nonintrospective musical analysis. But we have good reason to believe that a musical experience is not a purely private thing, like seeing pink elephants
Seeing pink elephants
"Seeing pink elephants" is a euphemism for drunken hallucination, caused by alcoholic hallucinosis or delirium tremens. The first recorded use of the term is by Jack London in 1913, who describes one kind of alcoholic, in the autobiographical John Barleycorn, as "the man whom we all know, stupid,...
, and that reporting about such an experience need not be subjective
Subject (philosophy)
In philosophy, a subject is a being that has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness or a relationship with another entity . A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed...
in the sense of it being a mere matter of opinion" (Clifton 1983, 8–9).
Clifton's task, then, is to describe musical experience and the objects of this experience which, together, are called "phenomena," and the activity of describing phenomena is called "phenomenology" (Clifton 1983, 9). It is important to stress that this definition of music says nothing about aesthetic standards.
Music is not a fact or a thing in the world, but a meaning constituted by human beings. . . . To talk about such experience in a meaningful way demands several things. First, we have to be willing to let the composition speak to us, to let it reveal its own order and significance. . . . Second, we have to be willing to question our assumptions about the nature and role of musical materials. . . . Last, and perhaps most important, we have to be ready to admit that describing a meaningful experience is itself meaningful. (Clifton 1983, 5–6)
Nattiez
"Music, often an artArt
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
/entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment consists of any activity which provides a diversion or permits people to amuse themselves in their leisure time. Entertainment is generally passive, such as watching opera or a movie. Active forms of amusement, such as sports, are more often considered to be recreation...
, is a total social fact whose definitions vary according to era
Era
An era is a commonly used word for long period of time. When used in science, for example geology, eras denote clearly defined periods of time of arbitrary but well defined length, such as for example the Mesozoic era from 252 Ma–66 Ma, delimited by a start event and an end event. When used in...
and culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
," according to Jean Molino
Jean Molino
Jean Molino is professeur ordinaire at the University of Lausanne and a semiologist. His students include Jean-Jacques Nattiez.-Bibliography:*Musical Fact and the Semiology of Music, trans. J. A. Underwood, Music Analysis 9/2 : 113-156....
(1975, 37). It is often contrasted with noise. According to musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez
Jean-Jacques Nattiez
Jean-Jacques Nattiez, CM, CQ, FRSC is a musical semiologist or semiotician and professor of Musicology at the Université de Montréal...
: "The border between music and noise is always culturally defined—which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place; in short, there is rarely a consensus.... By all accounts there is no single and intercultural universal concept defining what music might be" (Nattiez 1990, 47–8 and 55). Given the above demonstration that "there is no limit to the number or the genre of variables that might intervene in a definition of the musical," (Molino, 1987, 42) an organization of definitions and elements is necessary.
Nattiez (1990, 17; see sign (semiotics)
Sign (semiotics)
A sign is understood as a discrete unit of meaning in semiotics. It is defined as "something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity" It includes words, images, gestures, scents, tastes, textures, sounds – essentially all of the ways in which information can be...
) describes definitions according to a tripartite semiological scheme similar to the following:
| Poietic Process | Esthesic Process | |||
| Composer (Producer) | → | Sound (Trace) | ← | Listener (Receiver) |
There are three levels of description, the poietic, the neutral, and the esthesic:
- " By 'poietic' I understand describing the link among the composer's intentions, his creative procedures, his mental schemas, and the result of this collection of strategies; that is, the components that go into the work's material embodiment. Poietic description thus also deals with a quite special form of hearing (Varese called it 'the interior ear'): what the composer hears while imagining the work's sonorous results, or while experimenting at the piano, or with tape."
- "By 'esthesic' I understand not merely the artificially attentive hearing of a musicologist, but the description of perceptive behaviors within a given population of listeners; that is how this or that aspect of sonorous reality is captured by their perceptive strategies." (Nattiez 1990, 90)
- The neutral level is that of the physical "trace", (Saussere's sound-image, a sonority, a score), created and interpreted by the esthesic level (which corresponds to a perceptive definition; the perceptive and/or "social" construction definitions below) and the poietic level (which corresponds to a creative, as in compositional, definition; the organizational and social construction definitions below).
Table describing types of definitions of music (Nattiez 1990, 46):
| poietic level (choice of the composer) |
neutral level (physical definition) |
esthesic level (perceptive judgment) |
|
| music | musical sound | sound of the harmonic spectrum |
agreeable sound |
| nonmusic | noise (nonmusical) |
noise (complex sound) |
disagreeable noise |
Because of this range of definitions, the study of music comes in a wide variety of forms. There is the study of sound and vibration
Oscillation
Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value or between two or more different states. Familiar examples include a swinging pendulum and AC power. The term vibration is sometimes used more narrowly to mean a mechanical oscillation but sometimes...
or acoustics
Acoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...
, the cognitive study of music, the study of music theory
Music theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
and performance practice or music theory and ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...
and the study of the reception and history of music, generally called musicology
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
.
Xenakis
Composer Iannis XenakisIannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...
in "Towards a Metamusic" (chapter 7 of Xenakis 1971) defined music in the following way:
- It is a sort of comportment necessary for whoever thinks it and makes it.
- It is an individual pleromaPleromaPleroma generally refers to the totality of divine powers. The word means fullness from comparable to πλήρης which means "full", and is used in Christian theological contexts: both in Gnosticism generally, and by Paul of Tarsus in Colossians Colossians 2:9 KJV .Gnosticism holds that the...
, a realization. - It is a fixing in sound of imagined virtualities (cosmological, philosophical, . . ., arguments)
- It is normative, that is, unconsciously it is a model for being or for doing by sympathetic drive.
- It is catalytic: its mere presence permits internal psychic or mental transformations in the same way as the crystal ball of the hypnotist.
- It is the gratuitous play of a child.
- It is a mystical (but atheistic) asceticism. Consequently expressions of sadness, joy, love and dramatic situations are only very limited particular instances.
(Xenakis 1971, 181)
External links
- What is Music? A brief sketch of some definitions found throughout history by Marcel Cobussen
- MusicNovatory.com The Science of Music, a generative music theory