TIME FOR ANOTHER TEST (Oct-06-06)

[moved from old forum:]

I see that very frequently students and, even a number of professionals at the onset of their careers,. are just very close to understanding music and their role as artists.

The role of artist is very challenging, yet the moment one picks up a musical instrument one has to recognize that in order to play it one has to make a transition into another dimension of being .

Frequently that transition has been made before birth as we understand it or sometime after it.

The question I am posing here is a complement to the first TIME FOR A TEST .

This time we need to define what we are doing in order to prevent alienation and separation from it.

The question to be answered in one's own terms is:


WHAT IS MUSIC?

I recommend a week long contemplation and listening to music of all styles and cultures before attempting any definition.

I could give hints but I have written on it extensively here at GP. I dont recommend quoting me because I am interested in YOUR living experience, not an exclusively intellectual grasp of music.


WHY POSE THE QUESTION?

When one can define music one is an artist.

The exception is: When one is manifesting music and cannot verbalize a definition. But that artistry is always evident in the status of such a performer and his level of influence on the audience. His impact on and audience is proof that (as my friend BROTO ROY puts it) .... He KNOWS !!!.

This question is designed to save those of us here at GP from becoming part of the very large number of "guitar players" who are not artists, but who can move their hands and fingers so well that they create a very good impersonation of an artist without actually being one. We all know when we are faced with such an individual because. while they are making sounds and sometimes with great speed, we do not feel in their presence the power of music as we do in the presence of a real artist.

It is also designed to save the student from becoming trapped in a world of false concepts, unaplicable paradigms , wrong assumptions and self created limitations in learning, which keeps him/her permanently isolated from significant technical growth and musical ability itself.

If you do not see any commentary from me when you post your reply.... keep meditating until you get much closer to an answer.


ALL MY BEST TO YOU,
Ney Mello

To inquire easily about lessons and consultations at all levels with NEY MELLO visit:
http://www.neymello.com
and...
http://www.myspace.com/neymello

[moved from old forum:]

Music is life manifested in sound.

If we consider music as a kind of art (and artists or musicians as the ones who let us hear it), then the word "music" is how we distinguish that particular infinite reality from other such things that use different media, like paintings, photographs, movies, books, or whatever other kinds of art.

That is my first thought.

-Rastus

[moved from old forum:]

I've cooked it for a couple days now, and the rest of a week probably won't help now.

Music is a program that willingly or unwittingly enters your mind and takes over, you surrender your attention to its experience.

It can be intellectual, emotional, physically motivating, spiritual, thought clearing, etc., EVREYTHING that goes on in "yourself" music expresses.

Soilent Green is People.

Same thing.

I am reminded of the Tibettan Prayer-song of the Guardian.
- And that is some serious Bald-head-bangin-Monk-Metal.

Brrrwaaaaaaa clang bang thunk thunk thunk clang brwaaaaaaa....

So seemingly music can even chase the dead away from the temple.

Music is the raw commanding of awareness.

-Light Rock

[moved from old forum:]

Music is the voice of god.

so what is god? in my definition its some kind of endless life stream that exists and is the root of all existing.

so it can touch your actual connection to god itself and with it it can be as destructive as it can be healing.

so it can transfere you in another one s reality, primarly the reality of ones life feelings.

-Rumsbums

[moved from old forum:]

I know that I have a different opinion on what music actualy is then you ney. Ive thought about it for a while and I think first there is a blank sheet of paper or a medium that is everywhere. Only few take this in. Not that they are gifted but they are open. As this supernatural medium fills are mind our emotional state at that time colors that paper. A picture is created. from there me must get it from our mind into our fingers, and out of our guitars. Ney you say that music is everywhere and if you are open then you can just take it in and play it. I think that is what you have said before. I think that humans have the ability to create music. I do not believe it is already created, and just let it flow out. Its very hard to verbalize this. Especially the medium part i dont know what that is yet. The thing is is I dont understand how someone can say that is correct if my opinion is different?

-Vai123

[moved from old forum:]

Music is sounds put together to create an art form. It is infinite and finite -- beautiful in the box and out of the box. Music plays by rules and breaks the rules. Music is a gift that no one can own, but that one can have the honor of letting it pass through them and out to the audience if one works very hard to receive the gift. Music can evoke all emotions, and touch a soul.

My thoughts,

Donna

[moved from old forum:]

That is very close to my definition... since I see Life and God as different words for the same thing. So if I understand you right, we must be thinking somewhat alike.

-Rastus

[moved from old forum:]

K I apologize to anyone who reads this might get long winded as I fumble around for some kind of "non answer" cause if i could say something and have it mean as much as when someone plays something we'd all have english-speaking guitars or something.

Seriously though,
I know what music is to some degree, but it is hard to express in words or KNOW- ledge
just what it IS. It's much easier to try and make allegories, like
"Music is the arrow that flys from Cupid's bow when two listeners fall in love"
or something. (If anyone hadn't noticed, the guitar mechanicaly is a type of bow )
Otherwise you can convey notes, chords, rythm, timing, tempo, etc with words or better yet sheet music, and this is the best or most "accurate" way we have for describing how to play music, but only because it's widely agreed upon enough that it will give someone enough information to play a musical piece, but even then there are elements to the music that cannot be fully conveyed on the staff paper. Ever look at a song in a songbook and see words like "with feeling" up there somewhere near the tempo?
But this "music language" of staffs and notes(or tab which doesn't even give rythm or timing!) is not the music itself,
just like you can't make apple juice from the word apple.

So just what then IS it?

I do believe it is something that comes through a person. I think
the best music comes from at the very least our "higher selves", and where our higher self got it can only be speculated.
It's a process that can be learned but only pointed towards with words.
And it's hard to say that anything but maybe the wildest, wierdest jazz/improv doesn't
draw from something that has already been written. Theres only seven notes in the western major scale, and therefore only seven "regular" triads or chords, and think how long it's been in use. For anyone to write a pop song or a rock song or a folk, country or metal, or any kind of song that uses chords and chord progressions, and come up with a combination NO ONE ever has isn't probable. You can write different words, change keys, or otherwise change arrangements, but most likely somebody somewhere once played something like it. But the beatiful thing about it is even one
song can be played an infinite different number of ways. Think of 12 bar blues! Or how about Twinkle Twinkle Little Star/ABC song/Baa Baa Black Sheep?!
(By the way does anyone know of any further lyrics to the last one, like for the "now I know my ABCs" part of the tune? cause now that I think of it, that part doesn't get used for Baa Baa)
We can manipulate music, but for me personally at least it seems the less
I try to control "where it wants to go" and just try to follow "that feeling" in both improvisation and even in writing the further it goes and the more i enjoy what manifests itself to my ears.
We could program a sophisticated super computer to write music, even giving it randomization, example songs/fragments/progressions, and "rule bending" algorythms, but I bet anything it would still sound better if played by humans, and as soon as we did that I bet part or parts would stick out to us that we would want to change or tweek a bit to more closely resemble what our minds and moreso our hearts wanted to hear, and then by that point we couldn't really give the computer all the credit, because we practically just did the same thing as someone who sits around and listens to the radio for awhile and then goes and plays or writes their own version of a song they heard, adding their own touch of "with feeling".

I guess much more than I KNOW what music is, I FEEL what music does.
You can't see the wind, but you look at the effect and say you "see" the wind.
I don't think I'll ever totally KNOW what music is, because my mind just can't
wrap itself totally around music. You can know every last in and out of
of music THEORY, but still not know what to do when the songbook says "with feeling".
It's the heart that feels the music that "knows" what it is, so like it was said, to speak from the seat of where music is "known", would require me to play music, or respond to hearing in a visible way. And i'm still working on my playing technique so i can get to that point where one can let go of focusing on teqhnique so entirely as to be totally freed up to focus all attention on simply hearing/feeling what is coming out. Dang learning an instrument is a great way to learn music appreciation!

I think I can say with absolute certainty I am a music fan. So I'm a music fan and I'm several years into the process of learning to play the guitar. Does that make me an artist? Well, I can't say that for sure, no. On my way to becoming or releasing myself into becoming one hopefully, if I stick to the right road. Sometimes I hear things come out of my guitar that immediately I would give much more credit to the guitar for, and not because of the way it's built, but just because I heard something I never heard come out of it, and I don't know where exactly it came from. Perhaps when I can reach that point more often, or all the time, and with more listeners than only myself and a couple jamming pals to confirm what, if anything, extraordinary happens through emotional reaction, maybe then I can begin to consider myself as something of an artist. I guess the pitfall is to lose sight of what I truly want, and that is not to have but to give music. Real music. Like the stuff that gives me the chills, you know what I mean.

All I know is I've seen music make people do everything from smile, to laugh, to moshing violently against one another, to sheding a tear or even crying, to dancing and whirling, to tapping or singing along(From voice box orchestras with lighters in the air to the dude in his truck with the windows down and the volume up).
So the best answer i can come up with as to what music is, until I can hopefully someday PLAY a good answer, is really just to squirm out of
giving a real answer and say what "My momma always said" -

Music is as Music does.

-Josh

[moved from old forum:]

I'll give this a whirl. This is hard to express within the context of a written language, I think, but here goes.

Music is a subjective perception. It is the artist's perception of the universal energy that we refer to as love, but it is also the listener's perception of that same thing, simultaneously.

Music is the audible (physical?) manifestation of the essence of love.

Geez, I could write about this for a VERY long time. But I'll just end here in the interest of brevity.

Ken

[moved from old forum:]

Lots of great anwers all...My DSL modem exploded in my face Friday when I reset my password due to a myspace alert.

I will be out of the emergency room (where they play nice music) soon and I will comment from home as soon as I finish my drum tracks ...Keep the answers coming.

-Ney