What is Music?

"We're coming to the beginning of a new era, wherein the development of the inner self is the most important thing. We have to train ourselves so that we can improvise on anything- a bird, a sock, a fuming beaker! This, too, can be music. Anything can be music."

Biff Debris in Uncle Meat

That's a favorite quote of mine involving music. Have you ever walked in to, lets say, a factory of some sort, and heard an entire composition from all the machines and everything thats going on around you? When you reach a point where you're comfortable enough in what you will to be music that you can hear anything that goes on around you and perceive it as music. Who says music has to have a 4/4 rhythm or a catchy riff. That's isolating yourself from so much that you could be listening to. It makes me really sad/angry when people say that anything, even if its something Im not into "isnt music". Now I realize that not everyone has the outlook that anything can be music, but it's just such a close minded way of looking at it.

"If John Cage, for instance, says, '"Im putting a contact microphone on my throat, and I'm going to drink carrot juice, and thats my compostion,"' then his gurgling qualifies as his composition because he put a frame around it and said it so. "Take it or leave it, I now will this to be music." After that it's a matter of taste. Without the frame announced, its a guy swallowing carrot juice.
So, if music is the best, what is music?
Anything can be music. But it doesnt become music until someone wills it to be music, and the audience listening to it decides to perceive it as music.

Most people cant deal with that abstraction-or dont want to. They say: "Gimme the tune. Do I like this tune? Does it sound like another tune that I like? The more familiar it is, the better I like it. Hear those three notes there? Those are the three notes I can sing along with. I like those notes very VERY much. Give me a beat. Not a fancy one. Give me a GOOD BEAT- something I can dance to. It has to go boom bap, boom boom bap. If it doesnt, I will hate it very VERY much. Also, I want it right away- and then, write me some more songs like that- over and over and over again, because Im REALLY into music."

Frank Zappa

Is that any of you? If it is.... well... I dont know what to tell ya. I think we were all like that at one point, but its when people reach late teens and still say that or think that when it gets really sad. But then again, not everyone is into music enough to appreciate it, they have other things which is just as respectable. I hope this at least planted a seed for some of you to think differently about it. If not... Im sorry.