What is music?
I ask every student the same question at some point in the lesson structure.
What is music?
There's usually a pause. Then a look that says: I paid for DJ or music production lessons, mate, not a philosophy degree. Then they have a go, because I'm the teacher and I've clearly asked for a reason.
The answers
Someone did once go for the dictionary version. Sounds put together in a way that's beautiful, or harmonious, or makes you feel something. Fine. But I've stood in rooms at 4am listening to things that were none of those, and nobody on that dancefloor would've told you it wasn't music. And a car alarm at 3am makes me feel plenty.
I usually say it’s just organised sound, because it makes sense to the lesson plan. That's a very good answer, if I don’t mind patting myself on the back. It's also not an original from me though, it belongs to a composer called Edgard Varèse, who got fed up with people telling him his stuff wasn't music and came up with a definition roomy enough to fit it in.
The trouble is I think it's too roomy. Walking is organised sound. Left, right, left, right, steady tempo, 124 bpm, bang on the grid, especially if you’re listening to Deep House on your walk to the bus stop. A washing machine is organised sound... err I think? A queue at Greggs has a rhythm section. Humour me here… if all of that is organised sound, therefore music, the word has stopped meaning anything.
So let’s tighten it, the human race said. Organised on purpose, by a person, to be listened to from a speaker. That feels better.
Then John Cage turns up
In 1952 a pianist called David Tudor walked on stage, sat down at a piano, and played nothing for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. He closed and opened the lid to mark the three movements. That was it. Orchestras have performed it since, a whole stage of professionals sitting very still.
The piece is John Cage's 4'33", and the point is that it isn't silent at all. People cough and chairs creak. Someone's coat rustled in the corner. Rain hits the roof. The audience is the music.
So there goes the whole "organised" argument. And there goes "on purpose", unless you count a man deliberately not playing a piano.
People go into a soundproof chamber hoping to hear true silence. They hear two sounds instead, and were told they were their own nervous system and the blood going round. His conclusion was that silence doesn't exist.
Which is a lovely philosophical thought, and no help to me whatsoever in my pursuit of an absolute answer.
A confession
Usually by this point the student has usually clocked that every answer they give gets knocked over, and they do the sensible thing by waiting patiently for me to tell them the real answer.
They imagine I've got it in my back pocket. That this is a teaching technique, and any second now I'll do the reveal and they'll go "ohhh".
I haven't got it, obviously.
I've got a first-class degree in this. I've read all the books. I've been DJing and making music for about twenty years and been teaching it for a good while. And I ask most students that question for one reason: I'm hoping one of them knows, because I bloody well don’t.
Still asking
You'd think it would get clearer with time right? Nope, It's gone the other way. Every record I hear, every real world sample I record and every book I read about music makes the edges a bit blurrier. I thought I knew exactly what music was when I was younger listening to The Game on Windows Media Player. I'd have told you in five seconds what it was and been annoyed you asked.
Not having an answer has turned out to be the most useful tool.
Most people come to me thinking music lives inside a laptop or a sound ommited from an instrument. Open the DAW, look at the grid, put the blocks in the boxes. And the grid is brilliant, but it's also a cage (sorry, John). Stare at it long enough and you start making music that looks right rather than sounds right.
So I try to get them out of the grid early on. Remember walking, the thing that broke the definition earlier? Listen to your own footsteps on the way home and you've got a tempo. The tube has a groove that swings more than anything you'll quantise. Rain on a car roof could a hi-hat pattern with a little EQ’ing and edit. The queue at Greggs really does have a rhythm section if you stop and listen.
Once you start hearing the world like that, it’s difficult to stop. And the electronic music you make afterwards gets looser, weirder and more human, because it came from somewhere other than a row of boxes on a screen.
Maybe that's as close as I'll get to an answer: Music is whatever you hear once someone asks you to listen properly.
I'll keep asking anyway and let you know.
