LECTURE 2: When Does Sound Become Music-3

  Who Makes the Decision?    D. Such

FACT: In 1964, when trying to define obscenity and pornography, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said, "I know it when I see it."
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Question: Do You know music when you hear it? This question may not have an obvious answer, and there are several reasons why.

If you expect to find a definitive answer to what music is, I doubt you will find it in this course. Why? I believe music is a creative art, something that sparks the human imagination and leads us toward creative thought. Putting a definition on music is like trying to stuff it in a box with a nice pink ribbon holding down the lid. If that were the case, music would probably sound pretty dull, having a crust of mold for garnish.

For music to do its job--to spark human imagination, thinking and emotion--music and musicians often go outside the box. Music changes, because for one reason or another musicians come along and often break the rules. Hence, instead of defining music in a one or two sentence box, I prefer to introduce you to some tendencies that generally remain true about music along with those issues that cause one to scratch one's head and wonder what is music and what is not.

Truism 1:  Defining what music is heavily involves expectations that are personal and cultural.

What this means is that what you or I call music is based on our own personal experiences having listened to music all our lives. We also grow up in a culture in which we generally hear music that has rhythm, melody, harmony and form. Pop music has it. Classical has it, jazz has it, and so does Broadway musicals. Hence, we come to expect that if something is music it has to have these characteristics. If for some reason, it does not or some of these elements are lacking, we might not call it music.

Is the following an example of music or not? An experimental classical composer named John Cage once wrote a piece called 4'33". Cage had a pianist sit in front of the piano and not play a single note for four minutes and thirty three seconds. When it was first performed for an audience, audience members began to whisper, cough and eventually shout. It was also possible for listeners to focus on the wind outside and the spattering of rain hitting the roof. Cage's intent was that these "extraneous" sounds were the "music." Hence, music should be a natural thing, not man-made. Personally, I doubt I would have enjoyed paying big money to see this concert. However, I do think he raises some interesting questions.

Click on or paste the following link into your browser to view another Cage composition that skirts the boundaries of music and non-music.

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Now check out the following video clip of Bobby McFerrin demonstrating the pentatonic (5 notes in the scale) scale for a group of scientists (basically, non music folks). When watching the video, consider how it is possible for the audience to anticipate a note when they have not heard McFerrin demonstrate it yet. The best answer is that the audience, having been exposed to so much western music throughout their lives, has internalized certain knowledge about how western music is organized. The audience may not be consciously aware they have this knowledge, but it is there stored in the brain as part of one's expectations. McFerrin simply found an interesting way to bring these expectations to the surface in this demonstration.

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Truism 2: Music does not exist unless the brain decides it exists.

Most people, with the exception of perhaps John Cage, would agree that the primary component of music is sound (Cage might argue that sound cannot exist without the background of silence--a Zen idea). According to physics, sound consists of vibrations. Some physicists argue that everything in the universe, including matter, consists of vibrations. With this in mind, here is the sequence of events that must happen before music (what we generally think is music) comes into being

1. Sound waves must be created, such as what happens when a guitar string is plucked.

2. That sound travels through the natural environment as a wave, which displaces air molecules as it travels.

3. When that sound reaches the outer ear or pinna of a human, the pinna functions to collect and somewhat amplify the sound. Hence, the human organ for hearing must be working properly.

4. From there the sound travels to the inner ear, where the cochlea is found. Sound stimulates tiny hairs inside the cochlea.

5. The cochlea translates sound or wave cycles into neural impulses and shoots them to the brain.

6. The brain, which is a composite of one's personal and cultural experiences as noted above, decides if that sound is "musical" or not. If it is musical, then it decides if that musical sound is good or bad. I happen to believe that some music somehow manages to bypass the brain and scoot directly to the realm of inner emotions (that idea would be another lecture altogether). Remember that each person's brain develops differently and that each person's cultural and personal experiences differ.

Interesting Fact: The human ear is capable of hearing sounds roughly between 20 hertz (hz) or 20 hertz and 20,000 hertz or cycles per second. Other animals can hear much higher hertz, such as dogs. That is why humans cannot hear a dog whistle, but dogs with normal hearing can.

WARNING: WEAR EARPLUGS AT LOUD CONCERTS and KEEP DOWN THE VOLUME ON YOUR MP3 PLAYER !

When you are exposed to loud sounds or music, the sound waves can exert enough pressure to flatten the cochlea in your ear. You might have experienced this after going to a loud concert. Your hearing sounds like an ocean. After a day or two, the cochlea stand up again, and your hearing returns to normal. Persistent exposure to loud sounds or music can damage the cochlea to the extent that they are unable to return to their upright position in the inner ear. The medical term for this condition is tinnitus, for which there is no cure.

Conclusion: It's a No-brainer!

The brain decides whether or not sound (or the absence of sound) is music. Assuming a listener is able to hear a sound wave traveling through the air, the listener's brain has the final say or only say as to whether or not that sound is music. Remember that the brain is a composite of one's cultural and personal experiences. These also figure into the brain's decision making process when it comes to determining whether or not a sound is musical.