There's no universal definition of music. It varies from culture to culture, and changes as cultures change. From ancient times, music in Western culture was defined as having pitch (manifested as melody or harmony or both) and rhythm. Suddenly rap came along, which has no pitch: no melody, no harmony, just words spoken rhythmically and percussion. And rap is counted as music. The only universal definition of music is: "An art form whose medium is sound." That's just the way people insult music they don't like. Somebody on this thread called country & western music "noise," yet with its conservative attitude, always staying about twenty years behind the times, it fits the standard definition of music as well as any genre. According to the only universal definition, music IS art. It may be bad art, but it's still art. Hey, nobody said all music is good music. If it has pitch and rhythm it's certainly music, even if it's poorly composed or performed. A drum solo doesn't have pitch the way a piano or a trombone has pitch, but the drumheads are tuned to distinctly different spectrums, and the differences can be used to approximate a melody. A steel drum is nothing but a metal barrel with individual regions carefully shaped to produce a scale, and people get beautiful melodies out of them. Even though it's an art that uses sound as a medium, I think we can distinguish tuneless poetry from wordless music, with the full approval of art scholars. John Cage is an iconoclast. Many artists in various mediums in the early 20th century tried to "push the boundaries of art" just for the hell of it. Just look at some of the painting, sculpture and poetry that was created in that era. Rock and roll fell into that category originally. It was basically just a giant "Fuck you" to the people who liked music that was prettier (chamber music and old standards) more intricate (symphonies and bluegrass) or required more virtuosity (concertos and modern jazz). It was simple, loud, rude, short, used a pentatonic scale and had no dynamics. The only way the next generation could say "Fuck you" to the people who made rock and roll popular was to take the pitch out of it and turn it into rap. I suppose the next generation will have to take out the rhythm. They'll just be reciting poetry with no melody, no percussion or other instruments. Back to the days of the Beatniks in their coffee houses. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
"What Is Music? Is All Music Art?" no. some music really sucks. sex pistols? they sucked but being first out of the gate accounts for smething so we can say they were pioneeers.
i am working on bridging the gap between musical notes and speech. for some people they are speaking with their instrument. like a guitar player, is he saying something with those notes or are they just noises coming from him and his instrument? so why can we make music a language. case in point: @:12 what is he saying? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18C5bGDWmas what is he saying at 1:27 - 3:41? it just like too much like words. and then he responde @ 4:52. not every musician has this ability. jimmy page had it for sure.
First of all The Sex Pistols were amazing. But its only in your opion that some music sucks. That doesnt make it not art. I think that the statue of david is just a naked dude made out of stone, big deal. But its a masterpiece in many peoples eyes