Re: [ARSCLIST] Music--was: CD versus Download was "All hail the analogue revolution..."

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 06/10/06, Steven Barr wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Don Cox" <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> On 04/10/06, Steven Barr wrote:
>> 
>>> The question then becomes "At what point does a collection
>>> of sounds become "music?!"...
>> 
>> When the person collecting and organising the sounds presents them as
>> music.
>> 
>> (Bad music is still music.)
>> 
> Actually, I wasn't referring to "bad music" (I can even grant "Doggie
> In the Window" status as "music!"). I was thinking of various
> essentially- abstract pieces of "music" (or so called by their
> creators) that, to my ears, had nothing whatsoever to raise them above
> the definition-level of "noise!"

What makes them music is the intent of the creator (or perpetrator).

Marcel Duchamp established that point firmly back in the 1920s, with his
presentation of a urinal as art. 

This is only a problem with "difficult" cases. 99.99% of music is
obviously music and nobody would argue about it. The problem comes when
a person is exploring the limits of what music can be, with music
concrete, aleatoric sounds, bird songs or whatever.

> 
> So...if the sounds are made using musical instruments, albeit
> in ways not intended by their inventors, does that make the
> result "music?"

No. The noises made on a piano by a piano tuner are not music, they are
test sounds. There is no intent.

 
> Or can any collection of sounds, however made and using whatever
> (if any) devices, be called "music" if the creator(s) thereof
> choose to so identify it? And are we obligated to accept this
> designation?

Yes we are. But you are not obliged to listen to it, if you think it is
pretentious rubbish, as it may well be.

> 
> I can recall, decades ago, someone commenting thatm "To him,
> the company name, 'Batten, Barton, Martin and Durstine' (or
> whatever it actually was) sounded like someone throwing a
> trunk down a flight of stairs" So...can I repeatedly recite
> the name, possibly accompanying that with the throwing of
> an actual trunk down an actual flight of stairs (this might
> be quite expensive if union labour is necessary?)...and call
> the results "music?" 

Yes.

> Or do I need to have a naked lady 
> perform one or both tasks? 

Only for the video. Not for the 78 version.


> And do I and/or the unclad damsel
> and/or the trunk hurler (as well as any necessary assistants
> thereof, inclusive) have to be paid AFM scale?
> 
> One wonders...

Regards
-- 
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx