Musicality — What criteria must a song meet to be considered actual music?
Music is one of the forms of art with the most variation of all. For example, the differences between classical and hip-hop are quite obvious, but even within the domain of classical, Western Classical, Chinese Classical, and the two versions of Indian Classical (Hindustani & Carnatic) are not remotely similar. To somebody who loves pop music, rap music would not even fit the definition of “music”, and vice versa, since our minds have internalized the characteristics of that certain genre as the characteristics of music as a whole. But surely we would all agree that random road noise ain’t considered music! Or do we?
To get to the bottom of this matter, it is best to consider my personal experiences with music. I have been playing piano for over 7 years, and the music I have played on the instrument has changed plenty over the past few years despite remaining somewhat within reach of classical music. However, recently, I have started to work on a background score for an 80’s Indian film. This is music to me — it has a lot of specific audible frequencies arranged in a pattern our brains can recognize and process into emotions. This is commonly cited as the “definition” of music, however, by this logic, percussion instruments like drums do not constitute as music, as they simply make a sudden “thud” of sort, and not really an audible frequency. However, the sound can be made repeatedly, and by varying the spacing of the sounds, a new art form can be created — that of playing the drums, and that is something that can be processed into emotions, despite the fact that a person who is used to hearing melodies would adamantly dismiss such sounds as music. So, music, unlike the other art forms, cannot be given a clear, dictionary definition that fully explains the concept — one can say that any series of sounds with a meaning is considered music, but what is meaningful and meaningless is left for the listener to decide. Yes, any series of sound, and by that, I mean any series of sound, can be music of the listener so desires to call it such.
I go to piano class once a week, and must climb many stairs to do so.
There is a rhythmic “thud” that is produced as I climb up that staircase every week. To most people around, it is just noises signaling that people are climbing the stairs. But for me, once I climb down the stairs after class, the piece I was just working on helps enhance the climbing sound, since the rhythmic beat serves as a kind of metronome, causing me to hear the notes of the song produced by the stairs, almost. It is still very clear that someone around me would hear the same noise and have no clue of that. But this only works if you have a consistent tempo song that could use a little aid in the form of time-keeping. Since there is no way for a recording of this to go viral on the internet, it is a form of subjective music — it only works at that place at that time when the song is running in my head. On the other hand, things you find online, anything at all, even if you dislike it, as long as it is popular, it is a form of objective music, since there is likely a formula or method to the consumption of that type of music that everybody can follow — and through the method, everyone should agree it is music, and not just sounds.
In other words, sounds are converted to music by the listener.
So, in reality, what we find released as “music” is merely sound created with the intention of the reader turning it into music, and while background sounds can also be music, they are not created intentionally and the majority of people who hear it are likely just to ignore it as random sounds. This concept of the consumer bringing an art form to life is true for almost every form of creative expression, including movies, shows, sports, and so on, but it is especially true for music since we hear sounds all the day — but the ones we find meaningful turn into great music. Any definition of what constitutes a song is subjective as a result of the phenomenon, and the criteria a song must meet to be music does not have a straightforward definition. You may choose whatever definition you like, as long as there are sounds to begin with. Extending this further, this can be taken philosophically by saying that the meaning of things that happen in life is not straigtforward, and it is inferred as well by the person. And, in many ways, music can be considered a thing that happens to people in life.
Thank you for reading this blog entry.
-Vishal Janamanchi