What is Music and Why you prefer the music you like.

There are a number of great books about the aesthetics of music, some of which I own and have read (loosely, not studied in detail). A simple one (with a western classical bias) is "Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy". Another great one by an actual philosopher is "Aesthetics of Music" by Roger Scruton.

What I find interesting is that very little music actually imitates nature. Natural sounds, incl birdcalls, are atonal.

So music hits us very viscerally, but it's an abstract art!! It's non-representational (except with respect to lyrics). Anyone who has difficulty appreciating a Kandinsky or a Rothko or a Pollack painting should think about music -- it's also abstract and it also strikes home, somehow.

I have very broad music tastes. I love classical and opera, I love world music esp from Africa, and I'm currently listening to a lot of Radiohead, Coldplay, and some lesser known Indie groups like Elbow, Shearwater, Museum Pieces, et al. Music moves through conflict and resolution, through momentum, through poignancy. And these are difficult to quantify. Add on top lyrical geniuses like Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Bruce Springstein, or even Thom Yorke, and you get a real synergy between poetry and abstraction.

You hit on a few of the classical conflicts in musical aesthetics there aedes. It was for a long time thought that european modal harmonies were the natural way for music to be formed! This was challenged by the serialism that arose with schoenberg, whose music was obviously more encompassing than the standard diatonic model in europe, and in turn more in tune with natural sounds. There were problems, however, with even schoenbergs 'liberating' methods of composition, they were restrictive and mathematical, forming a similar dogma against the old diatonic standard. Incorporation of both of these system in composition, by considering them both as tools and means to an end is, I think, the key to true artistic freedom for composers. The great thing about music is the interplay between mathematical reason/structure and emotional/subjective message. It is quite a holistic mode of communication/representation.

That interplay is particularly interesting with respect to older times when instruments did not have equal tempering, so each key had a truly different character. It was a variable that composers no longer face.

Too rarely discussed, however, is rhythm. Western classical music is very very rhythmically simple. I've listened to a lot of live drumming while working in Africa, and the complex interplay of 8 or 9 different but complementary rhythms, completely dwarfs anything that independently developed in Western music. But still, there is an emotional, abstract, visceral message that interplays with the rhythmic relationships.

As a drummer, I cannot even begin to tell you how right you are about rhythm, Aedes. Those African rhythms were banned outright in the US - except in New Orleans Congo Square. There, African rhythms and western rudimental drumming merged and out came jazz.

In the 60's, the legendary jazz drummer Art Blakey made a trip to Africa where he studied African drumming. When he returned, his polyrhythmic style reinvented modern drum set percussion, and in turn, modern music.

Rhythm is the most important part of music. A musician can have all the technical mastery in the world, but not be able to create anything due to a total lack of rhythm. Rhythm is not only the foundation of music it is the life force of it.

You can't have technical mastery whithout rythm, you would just be making arbirary noise very quickly. Your notes would be uneven and sloppy.

Sorry I meant theoretical mastery. Brain fart.

Interesting topic...

What I look for in music is quite varied but ususally includes one of the following:

Inspirational (in some capacity) lyrics, innovative use of sound, dancibility, emotional aspects of the music (eg. what comes up for me emotionally due to the music's sound; not the lyrics).

Here's some examples:

Inspirational Lyrics

To Be Alive Again - Journey
YouTube - Journey - To Be Alive Again


Innovative Use of Sound

Exploration of Space - Cosmic Gate
YouTube - Cosmic Gate - Exploration of Space

Miracle - Erasure
YouTube - Miracle

Dancibility

Days - High and Mighty Color
YouTube - HIGH MIGHTY COLOR - DAYS

Luka - Suzanne Vega
YouTube - Luka - Suzanne Vega

Emotional Aspects of Music

Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits
YouTube - Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits

One Big Rush - Joe Satriani
YouTube - Joe Satriani - One Big Rush (Live in San Francisco)

Addendum:

Many of the songs that I like incorporate multiple elements. For example the song by Cosmic Gate is innovative and dancible. The song by Suzanne Vega is inspirational, dancible, and has emotive quality. Etc.

I identify two basic level of 'liking' music in myself.

The first level is generally music I just like. That can be for several reason:

Rhythm - already discussed. Very important

Excellence of composition - example: good classical pieces

Message - If I can relate to it. example: Feel by Robby Williams and some songs by the Dutch group Blof

The second level is the kind of music that appeals to me at a deeper level. It is like 3D where everything else is 2D. In this class I know only one example, the music of Enigma(Michael Cretu et al.)

Is the trackback, the part where i can put a link for a actual youtube video to be posted in the thread?

Music is the timeless language of the wave. i have heard in my head, the orchestra of infinity and the choir of angels in the heavens, but could never reproduce it here in this plane. It is beyond words. If only there was an interface that could record the song in my head.

i like more than music, that for every human on Earth, there is some music for them to like. Grew up on Rush, play several instruments, and love to sing. mp