I realize the basis of this thread is straight up /mu/, but it's core question is very Veeky Forums related and so I post it here:
Is music truly invented, or do core genres exist in human nature like math, waiting to be identified?
Case of point- Here I present to you Australian Aboriginal music. Call me crazy, but when you listen to ONLY the notes themselves, it comes off to me, considering that Australians are the oldest civilization supposedly, that this is the oldest ancestor to metal. I know what this kind of accusation sounds like, but if you were to turn that first "song" into sheet music and play it through an electric guitar, it's literally your standard metal track:
I think you mean "culture", rather than "civilization."
I think music is invented, since it would not exist if humans did not exist. We're just interpreting different vibrations of sound waves and gaining pleasure from it. Fundamentally this is what music is.
If intelligent alien species were found, who also appreciated music that was similar to our own, then this might change something.
Asher Williams
Holy shit bump
Wyatt Long
Yes, music like Ode to Joy, Mozart, and all Tomorrow's Parties have always existed in history.
James Lopez
OP's not saying musical genres are inherent to the universe and not created by man.
OP is saying that certain genres might be inherent to human nature and not created based on previous genres
Ian Campbell
you are the biggest retard I've read of today. Music was invented by God and the rest I don't want to get into to
This is a much deeper topic than most shitposting anons will take it for. In fact you could make a decent argument this is the most fundamental question there is, or at least a line of questioning that leads to that most fundamental question.
I recommend reading some Schopenhauer, he gets into music in describing his own model for how reality works at ground level. Basically it's unique among the arts because a painting or a book for example are still grounded in some worldly details like the city the painting is of or the ethnic background of the book's main character, while music is able to be pure and direct Will without worldly context.
Benjamin Phillips
>Yes, music like Ode to Joy, Mozart, and all Tomorrow's Parties have always existed in history.
You're conflating specific instances of participation in a form with the form itself. The preexisting forms of music are like abstract blueprints that show the essence of how things work, while songs like Ode to Joy are specific instances of construction guided by the blueprint.
Jackson Garcia
This is actually the best question I've seen on Veeky Forums for some time. It's kind of neat because it depends on how you ask it.
I see two ways of looking at it.
1. Humans are humans and thus like the same patterns, even across the reaches of spacetime. We're all interpreting the same hopes, fears pleasures and pains regardless of how we make music.
2. There are only so many ways to compose musical patterns and thus we hit upon the same ones due to probability alone.
Juan Young
>Is music truly invented, or do core genres exist in human nature like math, waiting to be identified?
Just like math, music is 100% invented.
Luke Davis
3. Our sole purpose is to worship God, so it makes sense that music would be a pre-installed operating system.
Joseph Phillips
I always imaged math being a language used to describe real and natural phenomena. So not really "made up". Such as the mountain is real, but the word we use to label it is made up
John Sanchez
I err on the side of math being music. All music is is a series of sound wave frequencies, when we create new music, we alter said frequencies. Similarly, math is just the altering of quantities.
What OP is trying to say, I think, is not that actual "songs" have existed, but that human music comes from humans perceiving math and regurgitating it in the same form. In this way music is just regurgitated from its eminence in reality.
Samuel Lewis
No fucking way is math invented. The reason it isn't is because it actually has to work or else it doesn't count. You can't just arbitrarily make up your own math, you need to discover what works. The only remotely invented thing about it is the superficial culture specific symbols used to document your work with math. But don't mistake the symbols for the actual thing.
Ethan Evans
Isn't math just logic invented by humans to explain phenomena?
Lincoln Price
It's a possibility.
Elijah Walker
>Our soul purpose is to worship God
How can you make a claim like that when you can't even verify God's existence?
Gavin King
>Australians are the oldest civilization supposedly You wrongly assume it's one continuous culture.
Liam Watson
> just accepts the idea that energy simply appeared one day
The day we know where "things" come from, is the day God is not a valid scientific hypothesis.
Camden Campbell
The idea is that math is either a priori: before experience, hardwired into either the structure of the human brain, functional without reference to perception.
Or math is a posteriori but reflects the world on such a 1:1 truthful way that it could not be derived any other way.
If we accept the first hypothesis, then music could similarly be hardcoded into the physical nature of the human brain (or some spiritual nature of the human subject, if you prefer that explanation).
If we accept the second hypothesis, then music would be inherent to nature, or humans are wired to find certain mathematical patterns inherent to nature as pleasurable.
One thing I find interesting but don't know enough about is scales. Different cultures have different scales. Basically, different ways of counting. But when we from other cultures hear their scales, they still sound good. Arabic scales vs. Western scales for instance.
Cool subject. Has anyone here read Godel, Escher, Bach? I think it delves into this stuff in a compelling way.
Caleb Green
Hey, op, it's me. I was in that thread too.
It's good you made a thread asking this question.
I play dota and listen to the didgeridoo
Robert James
Math is a priori as it is not dependent on experience, but it isn't hardwired into the brain.
Nathan Long
>Basically it's unique among the arts because a painting or a book for example are still grounded in some worldly details like the city the painting is of or the ethnic background of the book's main character, while music is able to be pure and direct Will without worldly context.
In what worldly context is a Piet Mondriaan painting grounded? Its just colored squares and black lines yet it speaks to us as art.
Tyler Brown
Anyone who says math is invented is a mouthbreathing retard.
Brandon Howard
What a convincing argument.
Leo Sullivan
I think its more along the lines of this beat and rhythm is pleasing to the human mind and music is just those rhythms with different instruments and sounds, that's why there are musical rules and even someone who does not know these rules can identify when music doesn't sound right. I know I'm using all of the wrong words but I know nothing about music other than I enjoy listening to it
I think music is discovered rather than created. It can be altered and rediscovered like the didgeridoo metal comparison but it relies on something deeper and more phsycological to be enjoyable
Nathaniel Bell
Bump
Jose Collins
Math is invented. And is still being invented.
Music is a universal language. Music can cause the hearers to experience emotions. Music can cause the hearers to become unaware of the passage of time.
Samuel Myers
God's existence is self-evident from the universe he created.
You have to be in rebellion against God not to see that.
Being in rebellion against God means you lose your soul.
Justin Cox
Well he's not wrong, just being kind of a dick about it.
Math isn't being invented. You don't get to just make up your own math. It only counts as math if it works, and you need to discover what works. You're free to create your own painting, but you're not free to just throw random numerical structures together and have it be actual math.
