Music, Noise, Acoustics, Electronics, and the Future

I have been spending a lot of my time in a fascinating discussion with my fellow Delians concerning the difference between music and noise, acoustic and electronic instruments, and what it all might mean to the future of music in performance and recording. This discussion was sparked by my posting to the group of a link to my new Music Downloads page, which contains MP3's of three Synclavier pieces I created back in the mid-nineties. One of those pieces, Nightmare, is almost completely electronic, though it does use the melody from Rock-a-Bye Baby as a kind of cantus firmus; another, "Helix", is atonal sound art that uses a canon generated by a BASIC program which cannot be performed by humans; and the third, "Fractals", is like a quasi-tonal four-part invention that combines traditional composition with electronic effects. I was only asking for volunteers to test the new page, but a great discussion ensued when folks started listening to the pieces. Since the Delians are a group of tonal composers, it has been quite interesting, to say the least. Before I can posit my thoughts, we need to get the definitions I use clear.


My little Apple Dictionary that resides in OS X defines music thusly:

1 the art or science of combining vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.

Obviously, I was not consulted in the writing of this dictionary.


For this discussion, the following definition of music will apply:

The art of tone setting, in which implications of the harmonic overtone series are explored through the establishment of pitch hierarchies, the describing of melodic trajectories, the revealing of harmonic structures, the execution of contrapuntal motions, the propagation of rhythmic patterns; as well as any of the former elements in isolation, or a combination of any of the aforementioned elements together.


The Mini gives this as a definition of noise:

1 a sound, esp. one that is loud or unpleasant or that causes disturbance.

Again, I am available for consultation, and my fees are properly exorbitant.


For my purposes here, the following definition will apply for noise:

Any sounds which fall outside of the definition of music.


Examples:

Music= Gregorian Chant/Noise= The sound of fingernails across a chalkboard.

Music= A Mass by Perotinus Magnus/Noise= A dentist drilling into a molar.

Music= A Mass by Palestrina/Noise= A chiropractor adjusting a spine.

Music= A Fugue by Bach/Noise= Air escaping a balloon through a tightly stretched opening.

Music= A Symphony by Mozart/Noise= A jet engine at takeoff thrust or in afterburner mode.

Music= A Symphony by Beethoven/Noise= A diesel locomotive towing a hundred cars worth of freight.

Music= A blues by Louis Armstrong/Noise= An ambulance with a heart attack victim aboard.

Music= A drum solo by Gene Krupa/Noise= A firetruck on the way to a burning Mayors' house.

Music= A bass solo by Jaco Pastorius/Noise= A woman who has just seen a mouse or a snake in her bedroom.


Notable "gray areas":

Birdsong (Sometimes melodic, but not usually tonal or modal), a jackhammer or piledriver (Perfectly rhythmic, but not really musically so), a Jimi Hendrix or Adrian Belew guitar solo (Contains some pure music, some mixtures of music and noise, and some pure noise just for the sonic effect of it).


Noise often called music, or rather, mistaken for music:

Atonal "Music" is actually noise art with acoustic instruments: The implications of the overtone series are not brought into it if the situation is that one tone relates only to another and all tones share an equal standing; in fact, that's not a bad partial definition for noise right there.

Electronic "Music" sometimes is actually music (Switched-On Bach), but many times it is a mixture of music and noise art, or even pure noise art.


That should give you a pretty good grounding for my next post, which will be my thoughts on the implications of all of this.




That would be noise, despite the beauty of form displayed.