"That's not music, it's just meaningless noise"

[Dastardly]

A fairly common thing when listening to music you like is that not everyone agrees that it's as good as you proclaim. But then there's the nay-sayers that go as far as to say that what you listen to is in fact not music, but just pointless noise. This is mostly seen when talking about extreme metal genres and progressive music, but I've heard people say it about most genres.

To an American child, the Polish language is just pointless noise. To a Polish child, it is the language that holds all meaning.

The usual problem, as I see it, is that many proponents of the off-the-beaten-path musical languages don't make any attempt to teach people the language of their music. They change everything, and they do so all at once, and anyone that doesn't "get it" is written off as an idiot (at least within the medium). In these cases, you've got the "progressive" people treating others with contempt, so it's no wonder that those people are going to react strongly (and negatively)... but usually, that's what those "progressives" are looking for in order to feel unique and exclusive.

For a historical example of this (and its remedy) you can look at Arnold Schoenberg. He wanted to "liberate" music from the major/minor key system by fully chromaticizing harmony. And he had two well-known students: Alban Berg and Anton Webern.

Webern took Schoenberg's ideas and distilled them down to their purest form... and his music is intellectually quite interesting, but it's musically unintelligible without intense study.

Berg's music took Schoenberg's ideas and reconciled them with the world's current understanding of tonality. He challenged many of the norms, but he also left some of them alone (so that listeners had something familiar to latch onto). By and large, his music is far more accepted than Webern's, and it can serve as a gateway to understanding post-tonal music like that of Schoenberg, or even Webern.

(So, you can see that classical music follows similar patterns as popular music. And each can learn quite a lot from the other.)

 

[ItsAChiaotzu]

I enjoy chiptune, but even most gamers seem to dismiss it as nothing but NES nostalgia.

And even then, few people who acknowledge that chiptune outside of old games exists, its mostly chiptune trying to be something its not, or bad automated 8-bit covers.

What just kills me the most, though, is when people insist that no sounds produced by a computer can ever compare to an analogue instrument.

I'm sorry, but no. I'm not that musically inclined, but I'm into fine art, and even there, analog is not God.

Well obviously, how much you enjoy the music isn't based at all on how it was produced, so logically to the listener, it doesn't matter if it was an analogue instrument or a computer. But, what people could quite legitimately argue, is that it is much harder to put one's emotions into a computer based piece of music, than it is to express oneself through the articulations of their playing an analogue instrument.

 

[JemothSkarii]

EDIT: Double Post, Escapist originally ate it and spat it back out

 

[Soluncreed]

Viewed by some as noise, but I think it's pretty kickass.

 

[diebane]

To some, it's just weird noises without consistency.

To Igorrr and many fans of his music, its something completely new, without the boundries of genres. This is without a doubt one of the most creative and out-of-the-box musicians I know.


I like this thread, I'm going to scan it for awesome stuff tomorrow.

mfG diebane

 

[nothingspringstomind]

I am about to blow your mind with stupidity. Please take this as representative of the average intelligence level of my friends and regular associates:

One of my friends recently declared my music taste as shit because I was listening to Bach's Toccata and Fugue. His reasoning? "Anyone can make that noise, it doesn't even have lyrics!"

In retrospect I really should have slapped him.

I've seriously lost all hope for education now.

 

[Jaygee02]

What really annoys me is when people who tell you that you don't like/understand music because you don't like a certain band, or confuse knowing about music with knowing about musicians.

 

[universaltraveller]

I've been told by alot of people what I listen to is noise, most of the time they are completely wrong, as jazz and prog rock is most definitely not noise... And all the metal on here, is just to well thought out to be classed as noise...

But then I thought of one of my favorite music videos, by a electronic duo I like called Autechre...


I do like this song or tune or whatever it is, but I can still understand those who think that is noise... haha

EDIT: Damn it, didn't realise I was ninja'd, but you can view my video here...

p.s. Just found out that the legend that is Notch said 'This is the greatest video ever made' and I kind of agree...

 

[Breywood]

If I get some disposable income I might pick up an album or two of Van Canto. Acapella "hero metal." They get flak from a lot of Americans because they're all vocalists and just a throwback to Beavis and Butthead which takes absolutely no talent to do. To me, it's original and the first new music I'll have had in my collection in three years. They all have great voices. I do not care if one does "not simply riddly diddly into Mordor."

 

[DarkRyter]

What you need is some objective definition of music.

For example, if it includes a controlled change in pitch and/or there is a presence of a rhythm, it is music.

 

[Uber Evil]

All music is pointless noise. Enjoy what you like, no matter the sound.

Mind if I hold onto that phrase? Seems strangely poetic.

Incidentally enough, I think that glitch music is awesome.

And now I'm inclined to agree. I love Escapist music threads. They've introduced me to Poets of the Fall, Ash, Closure in Moscow, and now this. Squee!
Also, dubstep. I love it, but one of my friends doesn't really like it because it doesn't have any singing in it, although he does understand how some people do like it.

 

[Julianking93]

I'm bookmarking this thread as I'm liking a lot of what I'm hearing here...

Anyway, I get a lot of shit for liking Polysics.


Understandable. It's a synth Japanese band. Not for everyone but I really like a lot of their music.

 

[ckam]

Vocaloid, deal with it.

 

[sivlin]

All music is pointless noise. Enjoy what you like, no matter the sound.

Mind if I hold onto that phrase? Seems strangely poetic.

Incidentally enough, I think that glitch music is awesome.

The Glitch Mob can thank you for me listening to them. I liked the song you linked so I started listening to their other stuff.

 

[Blue Hero]

Catchy.

 

[lwm3398]

All music is pointless noise.

My inner musical theorist just died a little bit.

On topic, probably hip-hop such as Atmosphere and Brother Ali. Looking at it musically, you can see at least a little bit of creative energy was put into the beats. And if not that, then you can tell from the lyrics.

 

[TheAceTheOne]

If I get some disposable income I might pick up an album or two of Van Canto. Acapella "hero metal." They get flak from a lot of Americans because they're all vocalists and just a throwback to Beavis and Butthead which takes absolutely no talent to do. To me, it's original and the first new music I'll have had in my collection in three years. They all have great voices. I do not care if one does "not simply riddly diddly into Mordor."

I smiled the first time all day at that... Just because of the riddly diddly. In my opinion, it's actually legitimately good music, though, which is what makes the riddly diddly diddly dum dum bits better...

Thank you, sir... Now I'm going back to being moody and depressed due to girl issues. I appreciate the small amount of fleeting happiness you brought me though.

 

[heavy-metal-ink]

Even the most hardcore of my metalhead friends fails to see why I adore stuff like this
But at the same time I wonder why half of them are obsessed with Dubstep, so it works both ways.
at the end of the day, music is all just down to personal preference

 

[zehydra]

music==noise

why is it some people can't get that.

organized noise. For instance, listening to a sound recording of traffic isn't listening to music. I'll grant that hardcore/death metal is in fact music, and that music is largely subjective, but I do think the point can be made that constant pitchless screaming is unmusical.

But that doesn't make you any less of a person for liking it.

I bang two rocks together it makes noise, someone else hears music. Also isn't constant pitchless screaming metal *runs away laughing*...I kid of course

there has to be some sort of intelligent organization of the sound to be music.

The reason I think pitchless screaming is unmusical, is because it (usually) does not add to defining the rhythm(s) within the song, and does not add to any kind of melodic/harmonic structure of the song. All it's there for is the expression of lyrics (and to establish an angry tone [which can be done well with melodic vocals]), which is technically unnecessary for music. Lyrics are usually used to express an explicit meaning to a song, but are not actually musical by themselves. They are poetry.

Problem with that is I don't analyze music like that (I have a friend just like you). If I think it sounds good then it's good.

well sure, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's music. You know what I mean? For instance, I love the sound of rain, I think it sounds quite nice, but I understand that it's not music.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

music==noise

why is it some people can't get that.

organized noise. For instance, listening to a sound recording of traffic isn't listening to music. I'll grant that hardcore/death metal is in fact music, and that music is largely subjective, but I do think the point can be made that constant pitchless screaming is unmusical.

But that doesn't make you any less of a person for liking it.

I bang two rocks together it makes noise, someone else hears music. Also isn't constant pitchless screaming metal *runs away laughing*...I kid of course

there has to be some sort of intelligent organization of the sound to be music.

The reason I think pitchless screaming is unmusical, is because it (usually) does not add to defining the rhythm(s) within the song, and does not add to any kind of melodic/harmonic structure of the song. All it's there for is the expression of lyrics (and to establish an angry tone [which can be done well with melodic vocals]), which is technically unnecessary for music. Lyrics are usually used to express an explicit meaning to a song, but are not actually musical by themselves. They are poetry.

Problem with that is I don't analyze music like that (I have a friend just like you). If I think it sounds good then it's good.

well sure, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's music. You know what I mean? For instance, I love the sound of rain, I think it sounds quite nice, but I understand that it's not music.

Just between you and me I'm just messing with ya, I understand what you said the first time. I just like messing with music people