Blog #2

Since the last blog post (and following our discussion in section), I have had much to think about concerning my definition of “music.” What constitutes music? I suppose this is the real question I’ve been grappling with.

What I’ve discovered is that, after several weeks I consider more things to fall under the genre of music than I originally thought. Though I am still unconvinced by John Cage’s 4’33”, (no matter how creative, I simply cannot consider the transformation of nothing into “something” to be music), I find myself identifying increasingly unmelodic sounds as musical. Coming from a background of orchestral music, this was initially difficult – music was a compilation of sounds designed to function together, each with a specific purpose.

This change in perception is likely a response to the work done on the first ringtone assignment (and also, more recently, our musings with RadiaL). In the ringtone assignment, we were asked to record sounds and turn them into ringtones using the tools we had learned up until that point in class. For me, this assignment was difficult to grasp – in my mind, we were being asked to turn noise into music.

I suppose this brought along the realization that the two, noise and music, are really more closely linked than I had initially thought. Last Wednesday in section, we took a series of assorted sound snippets and turned them into a sort of rhythmic melody in RadiaL – again, turning noise into music. Is music simply sound with intent, then?

Enough for those musings on music, now for something slightly more interesting:
Trance



I’ve had a lot of work this past week, and one thing that’s been helping me read is “trance” music. Armin Van Buuren has been my artist of choice, and his “State of Trance” album from 2007 is really tremendous. I think these songs are so appealing because their simple variations on a repetitive beat are fulfill the needs of two types of listening: with the volume, up, you can easily lose yourself in the music; with the volume down, it provides a great backdrop for work or any other activity.




- james