I kid but also listen to jazz every day.
Join us at !jazz@lemmy.world if you dig.
this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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To each their own.
I think of more avant garde stuff as a whole different category: like you're tired of just listening to good music and now you want something weird and interesting that may fail but definitely tried.
You know like a rough indie video game or movie that might not be the most fun but tries to communicate something (to varying degrees of success).
Edit omg reading on, this thread turned into a whole thing. Music people...
Yeah, I mean it's perfectly valid if you want to listen to avant-garde. No one's stopping you.
My whole point is that the whole point of avante-garde is to reject musical conventions. That's not an opinion, it's literally what avant-garde is.
There's a philosophical argument to be had about what defines music, and how does it differ from noise or sound?
Some people might say dadaism counts as music, others might say it doesn't. And that depends on your definition of music.
I'd put it this way:
Does an audio recording of a construction site count as music? Or is it just noise?
Mind you, one can edit the recording and rearrange it into something musical. However, doing this would require an understanding of rhythm, tempo, meter, pitch, harmony, etc. These are the fundamentals of music theory which I describe as a science because they're mathematics at their core, purely quantitative and descriptive.
They tell you nothing about how to use those concepts together to create "good music." They simply define the components of music itself. How they're arranged is up to the artist, and that whole range of expression is the art side of music.
One could argue that music doesn't need to be melodious or harmonic or rhythmic or any of that. But if that's the case, then how is it different from noise? Does that make the unedited construction site audio "music"?
I would argue that but I have a very broad interpretation of music and art in general and don't actually care that much about categories.
I mean that's valid, I'm not claiming that music has to be defined a particular way, even though if I were personally to define it I would probably include certain characteristics that distinguish it from noise. But I'm not claiming my personal definition is the only valid one.
The whole point of philosophy is to dig into ideas a little further than we ordinarily do. People can have different opinions, and that can stimulate good discussion. At least, as long as people don't resort to bad-faith argumentation by misrepresenting someone else's argument or taking other cheap shots like that.
What I mean is, although you say you don't care about categories, do you consider the sound of a construction site to be music? If so, that's fine, and I'm curious what your definition of music is. And if not, then I'm curious how you distinguish between noise and music. Is there any defining characteristic that places a collection of sounds squarely in one camp or the other, or is it entirely ambiguous?
For me all art is about communicating (feelings or thoughts that are hard to convey straightforwardly), and when I think about music I think of it as an art form that's about communicating using sound waves. Typically this is done by producing waves using instruments and techniques that sound good when we process them. 99% of what I consider music and listen to falls in that broad category.
I don't really think of construction sites as music, no. But I'm open to that lens.
Hypothetically, I can imagine an ear and a mind that would listen to the sound of a construction site and hear music. They would be able to interpret the different sounds symbolically and put together a story about what's being constructed and what kind of a day had been had as a sort of working class opera.
It's a bit of an absurd example and of course I can see how it's not actually music in the music theory sheet music type of way. But if someone tells me their asonorous mixtape is music, then I'll believe them that it's music. It might not be good or even legible, but it's some sort of attempt at communication.
This reminds me of the question: what's the difference between work and play? Is it just that you're compelled to do one for money? Does a game have to be fun? Does work have to be for money? I believe all of the same components can be said to fit into either of these two categories.