Historical conceptions(Music)

Historical conceptions(Music)

Music is everywhere to be heard. But what is music? Commentators have spoken of “the relationship of music to the human senses and intellect,” thus affirming a world of human discourse as the necessary setting for the art. A definition of music itself will take longer. As Aristotle said, “It is not easy to determine the nature of music or why anyone should have a knowledge of it.”

Early in the 20th century, it was regarded as a commonplace that a musical tone was characterized by the regularity of its vibrations; this uniformity gave it a fixed pitch and distinguished its sounds from “noise.” Although the view may be supported by traditional music, it would be an unacceptable yardstick in the latter half of the 20th century, when “noise” itself may be treated as an element in composition, to say nothing of the random sounds incorporated (without prior knowledge of what they will be) by modern composers, such as the American John Cage, and others in works having aleatory (chance) or impromptu features. Tone, moreover, is only one component in music, others being rhythm, timbre (tone colour), and texture. Electronic machinery has enabled some composers to create works in which the traditional role of the interpreter is abolished and to record, directly on tape, sounds that were formerly beyond human ability to produce, if not to imagine.