| ISLE | Chapter 13
| Is this Music?
We can also ask this question: What is music? A dictionary definition might define music as an art form based on sound. But how do we know what sounds are art and what sounds are, well, just sounds? On one hand, when we hear Rihanna singing “Love on the Brain” or the Cleveland Orchestra playing Schubert’s Symphony No.umber 2, there is no disagreement—we are hearing music. And when we hear the sound of a washing machine whirring or the sound of landscapers mowing lawns, we know that such sounds are not music. However, some artists stretch the limits of music. For example, in John Cage’s famous piece 4’33”, audiences “listen” to a performer doing absolutely nothing for 41/2 minutes and 33 seconds. The music is the rustle of people in their seats and the occasional embarrassed cough. Is this music? That depends on your perspective. Certainly, Cage wanted us to think of music in a whole new way. And what about the following? The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra played a piece of music in which every member of the orchestra was playing beer bottles instead of his or her normal musical instrument. Many of you may have also heard the typewriter symphony, which went viral on YouTube in 2012. Are these pieces satire, or are they actually music?
Go to the next two tabs to listen to both the Melbourne Symphony play beer bottles and the typewriter symphony and judge for yourself. Are these pieces music?