Hip-Hop

[Jay P 0]

...

Consider the simple case of two men walking together. Observation shows that they automatically synchronize their steps, in a rythym which forms the base of more sophisticated actions in dance and music.

I've never noticed this - I'll have to pay more attention next time I go for a walk with a friend. I'm a little bit doubting though, because what would happen if the two people have radically different leg lengths? (Or is the synchronization maybe not 1-for-1-step, but maybe 1-against-2-steps, etc?) Or perhaps there is a natural tendency to synchronization, but it doesn't happen unless the physical size ratios are within certain limits?

This sort of behavior is generally absent in animals. For animals running side by side, or for singing birds, there is rarely any unison of action. The reason for this distinction between man and most other animals is the level of the consciousness involved. The rythymic behavior in man is a feedback mechanism of some level of conscious attention which has become automatized. When synchronistic behavior is observed in other animals, it is typically not rythymic, a consequence of a limit on and lack of purposeful behavior for its conscious mechanisms.

Yes - I'm also quite sure I've never seen an animal keeping time with music - tapping its foot, for instance. Whereas with people, it's sometimes hard to not do this.

I notice with myself that listening to music takes conscious effort in the following way: listening to music makes it more difficult for me to use my mind do do something else. (I'm talking about music that I like - so it isn't a matter of my being annoyed.)

For instance, there are some books that, if I try to read them with music on, I just cannot concentrate. I can read a light magazine article, but if I want to read a heavily technical book, I just have to turn the music off, or I find myself not comprehending the book at all. (Not all music has the same magnitude of effect, but I don't have any generalized observations to offer yet. Music with words would probably be worse, because then the words would be distracting me, but most music I listen to has only instruments playing.)

Even more interesting is trying to count or do arithmetic while listening to music. If I'm doing some exercises and trying to count the repetitions and there's music on with a strong regular beat, I'll probably get lost in my counting, unless I synchronize my situps - or whatever - to the music. Or, I can get hopelessly slow trying to add a column of numbers. My mind has trouble "counting" the music and counting something else at the same time.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

...

Consider the simple case of two men walking together. Observation shows that they automatically synchronize their steps, in a rythym which forms the base of more sophisticated actions in dance and music.

I've never noticed this - I'll have to pay more attention next time I go for a walk with a friend. I'm a little bit doubting though, because what would happen if the two people have radically different leg lengths? (Or is the synchronization maybe not 1-for-1-step, but maybe 1-against-2-steps, etc?) Or perhaps there is a natural tendency to synchronization, but it doesn't happen unless the physical size ratios are within certain limits?

One can shorten his stride, while the other can lengthen his. The important point is that this rhythmic behavior is a feedback mechanism of some level of conscious attention which has become automatized. It is absent in animals because they lack that level of conscious attention.

[Valara 0]

I sort of disagree. In a certain sense, you could argue that all modern popular music is influenced by gospel, blues, and jazz. But, even though there were funk elements in the earliest rap music I've heard (I'll just call it "rap" now, since people have alleged that rap and hip hop are actually the same, and it's shorter to write), I don't believe that rap was born directly out of funk. I do think there were some American DJ's who would play drum fills off of funk records, and cut back and forth between one record doing a drum fill, straight into another doing a fill, without letting it go into the "song,"--a technique called "breakbeat," and some "MC's" started rapping over that. But I still hold that the whole idea of using that type of spoken word over rhythmical dance music first gained popularity in Germany, in the late 60's/early 70's, and that's what gave those American DJs and MCs the idea to do the same thing, but mix it with funk beats instead of necessarily only Roland 808 drum machines.

I think the marriage between rap music and r&b, and soul, and funk, jazz, and all of that, was a much later development. Not necessarily there in its earliest inceptions. But.. maybe you know something about it I don't know (most of my knowledge of this subject comes more from being 24 years old than from actually being interested in rap music!).

I've never heard of the German influence on rap music -- like you my only real knowledge of this subject comes from listening to hip-hop since I was a child. It seems like the influence the Germans could have had on rap would have been very mainstream, but still an influence nonetheless. (Like break-dancing, but that is a thing within itself, it's not really formally tied with hip-hop. If you want to dance, dance, and if you want to break-dance, break-dance!) As for definitions, think of "rap" as a verb, "That man can rap very well." Hip-hop would encompass those who rap but it also includes female vocalists such as Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Amel Larrieux, and Lauryn Hill, who do rap but carry that rhythmn through the song with the aid of their singing voice. (As an example, there is a sharp contrast within "Everything is Everything" by Lauryn Hill when she is singing and when she raps. It is an obvious distinction, but she doesn't have to be rapping to be creating hip-hop music.) That's one of the things I like so much about hip-hop music -- it is very pliable. Hip-hop does include "thuggery" but all forms of music have their good side and their bad, the thing with hip-hop music is that their bad side is what is pushed most heavily by mainstream media. If you want to hear amazing beats with drums, trumpets, violins, saxophones, and a wide variety of sound as well as lyrics you want to repeat to yourself, go underground. I offer Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Common, Arrested Development, early The Roots, and the like.

Hip-hop really is where jazz, funk, soul, and r&b collide. Imagine the improvisation of jazz, the jams of funk, the SOUL of soul and the sentimentality of r&b and you will have imagined hip hop.

[A.West 0]

What is the "bad side" of waltz? Or of harp music? I don't think all forms of music have the capability to convey brutality and malevolence in the way that forms like rap/hip hop/ etc. do.

[GMartin 0]

What is the "bad side" of waltz? Or of harp music? I don't think all forms of music have the capability to convey brutality and malevolence in the way that forms like rap/hip hop/ etc. do.

I don't think the concept of brutality can be conveyed just by the music alone, without lyrics. A waltz with brutal lyrics could be just as evil as some contemporary pop music. The lyrics add the conceptual. Possibly, a malevolent sense of life could be conveyed by the music of a rap tune, although not the concept of malevolence. (See Ms. Rand's discussion of music in "Art and Cognition" from The Romantic Manefesto.

[piz 0]

What is the "bad side" of waltz? Or of harp music? I don't think all forms of music have the capability to convey brutality and malevolence in the way that forms like rap/hip hop/ etc. do.

That may be true for certain musical styles, but it's also true that that capability is not inherent in any of them. It's a question of individual works, not of genres. I don't reject any musical genre as a whole; I like or dislike individual pieces. There is some rap I enjoy, and much I don't. You could insert "rock," "orchestral," "Gregorian chant," "jazz," "country," or any other category of music for "rap" in that statement and it would still be true. For example:

"I have been told that Wagner's music is much better than it sounds." - Bill Nye

I agree with that, yet I like "Flight of the Valkyries."

[Valara 0]

When I said "bad side" I meant anything you consider not to be good. I have heard cacophonic classical, a mesh of notes called jazz and everything in between. There is good and there is bad, I'm just trying to bring light to that which is good within hip hop. Just hoping you recognize that so maybe the next time you think about hip hop those thoughts won't only encompass "thuggery".

I agree with Piz, you do have to judge the individual pieces. Back to the original question -- Hip hop in other languages is just as cool if the beat is good!

[Ed from OC 0]

What is the "bad side" of waltz? Or of harp music? I don't think all forms of music have the capability to convey brutality and malevolence in the way that forms like rap/hip hop/ etc. do.

I'm not sure if you intended that to be rhetorical, but if not, it is a very intriguing question. But first, saying it is the "bad side" is a loaded question. An artist can present bad ideas artistically, by praising evil, but I'm not convinced art as such can be "bad" in a moral sense beyond that. An artist can present a dark, malevolent sense of life in any form of music. So, let me rephrase your question thusly: can all forms of music equally convey a certain sense of life?

Imagine sitting down with the lights dimmed and a glass of wine in hand. Your goal is to sit back for a while and listen to a piece of music with your full attention. As you start up the stereo, what genre of music would you listen to -- and which wouldn't you listen to?

Operas and symphonies have so much complexity that to fully experience them one has to fully focus on them. Listening to one while driving is a different experience.

Compare that to something like "gangsta rap:" there aren't nuances and subtleties to be missed. The shouted epithets and bravado, the repetitive rhythms and music samples, don't gain anything when one listens with full focus.

Compare these to the category I dislike the most. I'm not sure what it's called, be it techno/house/trance or whatever, but it consists of little more than simple electronic drum loops repeated over and over. It's often played at "rave" parties and is the modern equivalent of disco. If anything today called music deserves to lose that title, this stuff is it. It is a rhythmic beat solely for the purpose of dancing. I find it impossible to listen to directly.

Notice the distinction between classical music and these other two in from a psycho-epistemological perspective. A symphony has layers of complexity; techno is reduced to nothing but one aspect, rhythm, and is kept very simple and unchanging. The former requires full focus to hear the whole piece; the latter precludes it, as there isn't enough there. The former is a pinnacle of craftsmanship and refinement; the latter can be made by an untrained amateur with a computer. To a mind in focus, a symphony is an intellectual and emotional journey; techno is blunt, simple, and brutish.

With the above in mind, let me return to the initial question. I think certain types of music (like techno or the worst forms of rap) cater to an anti-intellectual, brutish psychology in a way inherent to the form of music, regardless of the sense of life portrayed in a given piece of music or lyrical content. *

Certainly classical music can be dark and malevolent -- but in a different manner than rap music does it. By analogy, Dostoevsky gives us the inner psychology of a criminal; a modern horror movie gives just the brute fact of evil and terror. I'm proposing there is a musical equivalent of the same thing.

* I'm not a fan of rap or hip-hop in general, but I do need to qualify the above and say that there can be and are many exceptions. Some rap lyrics are clever. It can be funny and entertaining to an extent. Yet there is a limit to the genre, as certain traits must be in the piece of music to still be called rap, and that includes a limit on the complexity of the music.

[B. Royce 0]

Very well put, Ed. I agree with what you've said here.

[piz 0]

I think certain types of music (like techno or the worst forms of rap) cater to an anti-intellectual, brutish psychology in a way inherent to the form of music, regardless of the sense of life portrayed in a given piece of music or lyrical content. *

* I'm not a fan of rap or hip-hop in general, but I do need to qualify the above and say that there can be and are many exceptions. Some rap lyrics are clever. It can be funny and entertaining to an extent. Yet there is a limit to the genre, as certain traits must be in the piece of music to still be called rap, and that includes a limit on the complexity of the music.

As you might expect, I disagree with this. As I said, I don't think that malevolence is inherent in any musical form, though it can perhaps be more easily expressed in some forms than others.

To use techno as an example: I don't listen to it on my own and, since I dance about as well as a rhino flies , I don't spend any time at dance clubs, but I have heard enough techno to have formed the opinion that what you call anti-intellectual and brutish can instead be and often is a display of power and exuberance performing the function of a "canvas" for the flamboyant human celebration which club dancing can be. Just because some people use the music to celebrate the wrong things, or for the wrong reasons, or to engage in mindlessness, doesn't of necessity make the musical form inherently malevolent or nihilistic.

[Ed from OC 0]

As you might expect, I disagree with this. As I said, I don't think that malevolence is inherent in any musical form, though it can perhaps be more easily expressed in some forms than others.

I think we're miscommunicating. Where did I say the contrary?

...I have heard enough techno to have formed the opinion that what you call anti-intellectual and brutish can instead be and often is a display of power and exuberance performing the function of a "canvas" for the flamboyant human celebration which club dancing can be.

I'd argue it isn't the "music" per se they are dancing to, but the rhythm. Any piece of music with the same rhythm can be danced to in the same way.

BTW, I don't share your opinion of what passes for dancing in the club scene. Ballroom dancing, salsa, swing... these are far more expressive. Even disco, which I don't like, has a "vocabulary" of steps. Drunk or stoned people grinding on each other is not dancing.

[piz 0]

As you might expect, I disagree with this. As I said, I don't think that malevolence is inherent in any musical form, though it can perhaps be more easily expressed in some forms than others.

I think we're miscommunicating. Where did I say the contrary?

Here:

I think certain types of music (like techno or the worst forms of rap) cater to an anti-intellectual, brutish psychology in a way inherent to the form of music, regardless of the sense of life portrayed in a given piece of music or lyrical content.

(emphasis mine)

BTW, I don't share your opinion of what passes for dancing in the club scene. Ballroom dancing, salsa, swing... these are far more expressive. Even disco, which I don't like, has a "vocabulary" of steps. Drunk or stoned people grinding on each other is not dancing.

If that were the only kind of dancing going on, I'd agree. But it's not. I didn't say it's always celebratory, I said it can be, and I've witnessed cases where it is.

[Ed from OC 0]

Here:

QUOTE(Ed from OC @ Oct 8 2006, 03:35 PM)

I think certain types of music (like techno or the worst forms of rap) cater to an anti-intellectual, brutish psychology in a way inherent to the form of music, regardless of the sense of life portrayed in a given piece of music or lyrical content.

(emphasis mine)

I don't equate a malevolent sense of life with an anti-intellectual, brutish psychology. They may often appear together in the same person, but they are different traits.

(P.S.: I haven't figured out how to do nested quotes.)

[Mercury 0]

I'm not sure if you intended that to be rhetorical, but if not, it is a very intriguing question. But first, saying it is the "bad side" is a loaded question. An artist can present bad ideas artistically, by praising evil, but I'm not convinced art as such can be "bad" in a moral sense beyond that. An artist can present a dark, malevolent sense of life in any form of music. So, let me rephrase your question thusly: can all forms of music equally convey a certain sense of life?

[...]

* I'm not a fan of rap or hip-hop in general, but I do need to qualify the above and say that there can be and are many exceptions. Some rap lyrics are clever. It can be funny and entertaining to an extent. Yet there is a limit to the genre, as certain traits must be in the piece of music to still be called rap, and that includes a limit on the complexity of the music.

I agree with this post in its entirety, and I was a HUGE fan of hip-hop for many years.

[Just Mark 0]

I basically agree with Ed, but I'm writing to make a couple of different points.

Focusing on labels in music may be more misleading than helpful. Popular music today is, as several people have pointed out, a fusion of many different influences in many combinations and proportions. This development is accelerating but has been with us for a long time. Thus, to say you like, or don't like, rap or hip-hop, without defining your terms in a narrow sense will be inaccurate. If you define your terms narrowly and accurately, you will be filtering out everything but the pure genre, which will render it inapplicable to most of the music, and thus largely unhelpful. (It is analogous to the observation that "to economists, the real world is a special case".) I am not arguing against definitions, but I am contending that necessarily arbitrary categorizations within an art form that is rapidly blending and changing is not productive. As a single example, Rhapsody calls Nelly Furtado, a Canadian of Portugese descent who uses a variety of rythyms and instrumentation (including ukulele and trombone) as "Neo-soul". Somehow, I don't picture Aretha or even a neo-Aretha (if such a person could exist) when I hear Nelly Furtado.

Let me make my own predeliction clear. While many of you stated that you were all about the music, I'm all about the words. In the best songs, words and music join so you can't imagine one without the other. Think of "Bridge Over Troubled Water". There are songs, of course, where the tune is so pretty, you can't even tell the lyrics are banal, moronic or evil - think "Your Song" (banal, not evil, Hannah Arendt notwithstanding). And of course, there are great words where the music is merely a vehicle for words that would stand on their own - think "It's Alright Ma" by Dylan. The problem is, most people really don't have much worth saying, which means in my book, they've got a big handicap.

There is good music everywhere, from every generation. Unfortunately, most people stop listening to new music when they leave college (it's true), and they are forever stuck thinking whatever was playing in their dorm room was the best music ever, and everything today sucks. By reaching out and listening to new music, whatever the label, you will hear mostly crap (Sturgeon's Law), but you will discover that there are some real gems out there. For every nine Jessica Simpsons or Kelly Clarksons out there, there is an Avril, a Pink, a Michelle Branch with something to say. A great contrast is to compare Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You" (you treated me bad so now I'm a hopeless piece of dung - "because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk") with Christina Aguilera's "Fighter" (you treated me bad so now I'm stronger for it - " I wanna thank you 'Cause you made me that much stronger"). KC's is classic victimhood. CA's is actually inspiring. And it has a great beat! The last song I heard with really good lyrics was Jewel's "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland", explaining why she's leaving fantasy for reality.

In my view, if you are going to draw a family tree for Rap, I believe it is most helpful to consider it a direct descendant of folk protest music via funk. As in Folk, the the words are everything and the music or rythym is the vehicle. It never happened, but I can just see LL Cool J saying "Dylan can't carry a tune anyway, why don't we just do the protest song without even pretending to have a tune?" Thus, rap was born. You can take any Dylan song, take out the three chords, and voila! (This is, of course, a neo-Lockian reconstruction). Again, you could easily imagine "It's Alright Ma" as a rap song.

To make a long rant short, I would suggest that we focus on the elements that make music enjoyable (e.g., songs celebrating productive achievement or songs with great harmonies) or reprehensible (e.g., songs celebrating rape or mindless destruction) and not focus so much on unhelpful categories.

[Rose Lake 0]

I basically agree with Ed, but I'm writing to make a couple of different points.

Focusing on labels in music may be more misleading than helpful. Popular music today is, as several people have pointed out, a fusion of many different influences in many combinations and proportions. This development is accelerating but has been with us for a long time.

I think popular music in this country is one of the few things in the 20th century that have made great strides in reverse.

Although I would change ‘few things’ to ‘many things’ I agree with this statement about popular music. This is not to say that every individual composition represents a 'great stride in reverse,' but that the general direction of the quality of popular music is down, and I do not yet see this general direction reversing.

Thus, to say you like, or don't like, rap or hip-hop, without defining your terms in a narrow sense will be inaccurate. If you define your terms narrowly and accurately, you will be filtering out everything but the pure genre, which will render it inapplicable to most of the music, and thus largely unhelpful. (It is analogous to the observation that "to economists, the real world is a special case".) I am not arguing against definitions, but I am contending that necessarily arbitrary categorizations within an art form that is rapidly blending and changing is not productive.

Productive of what, and for whom?

Let me make my own predeliction clear. While many of you stated that you were all about the music, I'm all about the words.

Music is the genus under discussion, for which words are a non-essential characteristic. This is an objective fact, not a matter of preference.

In the best songs, words and music join so you can't imagine one without the other.

It's generally the case that, when a tune has lyrics that enhance the music, I recall the lyrics (to some degree). My standard of good lyrics is primarily, how they well they fit, rhythmically with the music; secondarily, whether the style of speech fits with the music, and lastly, the meaning of the words.

[Rose Lake 0]

Think of "Bridge Over Troubled Water". There are songs, of course, where the tune is so pretty, you can't even tell the lyrics are banal, moronic or evil - think "Your Song" (banal, not evil, Hannah Arendt notwithstanding). And of course, there are great words where the music is merely a vehicle for words that would stand on their own - think "It's Alright Ma" by Dylan.

I find that music created as an after-thought for words is generally tedious and offensive.

There is good music everywhere, from every generation.

True, but it's a lot easier to find good music from some eras than from others.

Unfortunately, most people stop listening to new music when they leave college (it's true), and they are forever stuck thinking whatever was playing in their dorm room was the best music ever, and everything today sucks.

I hated the music that was popular during my college years. And it was after those years when I began to become more familiar with the music I enjoy most (some of which I'd heard in my childhood), and which I continue to enjoy, i.e. jazz and popular music from the 1930s - 1960s. Through the 30s and 40s, jazz and popular music were synonymous. This music was produced before I was born.

By reaching out and listening to new music, whatever the label, you will hear mostly crap (Sturgeon's Law), but you will discover that there are some real gems out there.

I think this has only been true since the 1950s. I have heard old radio broadcasts from the 1940s, where most of the music was very good.

In my view, if you are going to draw a family tree for Rap, I believe it is most helpful to consider it a direct descendant of folk protest music via funk. As in Folk, the the words are everything and the music or rythym is the vehicle.

Little wonder then, that I don't like it. The funk part is not so bad, but folk protest... yuk. I always hated folk protest music, because most of it was written by people who either knew and cared little about music, and were instead primarily pushing a political agenda.

[Rose Lake 0]

It never happened, but I can just see LL Cool J saying "Dylan can't carry a tune anyway, why don't we just do the protest song without even pretending to have a tune?" Thus, rap was born. You can take any Dylan song, take out the three chords, and voila! (This is, of course, a neo-Lockian reconstruction). Again, you could easily imagine "It's Alright Ma" as a rap song.

After watching a biography of Bob Dylan, I'd say that the driving force behind his professional activities was his desire to be popular. In this sense I think that he compares most closely with Madonna. And, although he may not have done it often enough, he was actually capable of carrying a tune. Lay Lady Lay is an example.

To make a long rant short, I would suggest that we focus on the elements that make music enjoyable (e.g., songs celebrating productive achievement or songs with great harmonies) or reprehensible (e.g., songs celebrating rape or mindless destruction) and not focus so much on unhelpful categories.

I don't think that celebrating productive achievement is a necessary part of good music, unless you are talking about the productive achievement of the music itself. Great harmonies are great, but not the only element of good music. And I find categories helpful in a broad sense.

The more familiar one is with a genre, the better source he will be for novices interested in finding the better music from that genre. That's why expert reviewers can be helpful, especially to listeners ufamiliar with various genres.

[Go 4 TLI 0]

Operas and symphonies have so much complexity that to fully experience them one has to fully focus on them. Listening to one while driving is a different experience.

Compare these to the category I dislike the most. I'm not sure what it's called, be it techno/house/trance or whatever, but it consists of little more than simple electronic drum loops repeated over and over. It's often played at "rave" parties and is the modern equivalent of disco...

Disco? I remember hating that genre in my stupid youth. But later in life I discovered that the Disco genre was the rediscovery of music that was meant to be danced to in a social setting. It took dance lessons for me to discover that the essence of Disco dancing is barely discernable from East Coast Swing. And I advanced from a complete wallflower to an occasionally confident Argentine Tango fan.

Ed, what do you mean by this comparison?

[alann 0]

Music is the genus under discussion, for which words are a non-essential characteristic. This is an objective fact, not a matter of preference.

It's generally the case that, when a tune has lyrics that enhance the music, I recall the lyrics (to some degree). My standard of good lyrics is primarily, how they well they fit, rhythmically with the music; secondarily, whether the style of speech fits with the music, and lastly, the meaning of the words.

Nope. Sorry.

With a flick of wrist over keyboard, you've just dismissed the entire history and significance of the lyric theatre, madrigal, folk tradition, and Tin Pan Alley, to name a few apparently benighted categories of musical composition.

You have arbitrarily written off an integral part of an integrative art form. Just because one can make a suite out of the melodies of "Carmen," for example, doesn't mean that the words are superfluous, or the opera would be long-gone by now, a footnote in the annals of music history.

"Instrumental" music would not need that qualifier if there were no vocal alternative and a "vocalise" would not be called that to distinguish it from a "song," in which words are part of its meaning and more often than not the reason for its existence.

Just because you don't care about the words of a song, find them dispensable, doesn't make that a defining principle.

A story is told in which Mrs. Kern and Mrs. Hammerstein were standing together at a party. A woman came up and gushed to Mrs. Kern: "Oh, I love your husband's music. Imagine, he was the composer of 'Old Man River'!!" At which point, Mrs. Hammerstein interrupted with "No. He wrote 'dumm dumm dum dum, da dumm dumm dum dum', my husband wrote 'Old Man River'."

Of course, you may not remember all, or even all but the title words of that piece, but, when it is sung, the meaning is contained in those words, given power by the music.

There are, as Just Mark says, great compositions and lousy compositions, good composers and bad composers. Some lyrics are truly disposable. Pick your Nirvana song; or "Bang a Gong" comes to mind. There are words that are just a nice assemblage of syllables ("Hey bop," "We will we will rock you!"). Then, there are great integrations of song and story, that take you on a journey that the words alone could not "This shirt," by Mary Chapin-Carpenter, "On a bus to St. Cloud," sung by Trisha Yearwood, "The Boxer," by Paul Simon, "Nessun dorma," from "Turandot," "Bring him home," from "Les Miserables," or "I could have danced all night," from "My Fair Lady," and more than I can write down without blowing the word limit. Or, how about "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" or "Officer Krupke," from "West Side Story," or "What a terribly awful movie!" from "Trouble in Tahiti" for humor?

And to bring it back to hip-hop, just rhythym and words, nothing new in music history, how about "Candy bar blues," by Paul Stuckey of Peter, Paul, and Mary, or "The Pool Table" from "The Music Man?"

In essence, in the lyric art form, words and music are integrated to communicate more powerfully than either could alone. Music can convey a generalized emotional content. Lyrics, words, give it its specific point. The music gives those words added significance.

Think about cartoons, comics. Is this not an art form? I would argue that it is (or can be). If the artwork is of good quality, can we just dispense with the words and still get the point? No. As with music, there are works by Charles Addams, for example, that need no words, the visual is enough, but that's the minority.

Certainly one can appreciate Opera without the words, but, without at least a synopsis (a brief of the words, in essence), it can be quite tedious. See "Marriage of Figaro" in English and I think you will be amazed that a work of Musical Comedy of such brilliance and wit was created so far ahead of American Musical Theatre. The music is brilliant, but the words of Lorenzo Da Ponte inspired Mozart to heights he never quite reached in his instrumental music, in my opinion. I was an instrumentalist before becoming an opera singer and I never really loved Mozart (except for "Turkish March" and some tunes here and there) until I heard his operas. He put down in music complexities of human emotion underneath the likewise brilliant text that lift that composition to heights it would never reach without the human voice and the words it can express.

Cheers and Long Live Music.

[Rose Lake 0]

Music is the genus under discussion, for which words are a non-essential characteristic. This is an objective fact, not a matter of preference.

Nope. Sorry.

With a flick of wrist over keyboard, you've just dismissed the entire history and significance of the lyric theatre, madrigal, folk tradition, and Tin Pan Alley, to name a few apparently benighted categories of musical composition.

You have arbitrarily written off an integral part of an integrative art form. Just because one can make a suite out of the melodies of "Carmen," for example, doesn't mean that the words are superfluous, or the opera would be long-gone by now, a footnote in the annals of music history.

"Instrumental" music would not need that qualifier if there were no vocal alternative and a "vocalise" would not be called that to distinguish it from a "song," in which words are part of its meaning and more often than not the reason for its existence.

Just because you don't care about the words of a song, find them dispensable, doesn't make that a defining principle.

A story is told in which Mrs. Kern and Mrs. Hammerstein were standing together at a party. A woman came up and gushed to Mrs. Kern: "Oh, I love your husband's music. Imagine, he was the composer of 'Old Man River'!!" At which point, Mrs. Hammerstein interrupted with "No. He wrote 'dumm dumm dum dum, da dumm dumm dum dum', my husband wrote 'Old Man River'."

Of course, you may not remember all, or even all but the title words of that piece, but, when it is sung, the meaning is contained in those words, given power by the music.

There are, as Just Mark says, great compositions and lousy compositions, good composers and bad composers. Some lyrics are truly disposable. Pick your Nirvana song; or "Bang a Gong" comes to mind. There are words that are just a nice assemblage of syllables ("Hey bop," "We will we will rock you!"). Then, there are great integrations of song and story, that take you on a journey that the words alone could not "This shirt," by Mary Chapin-Carpenter, "On a bus to St. Cloud," sung by Trisha Yearwood, "The Boxer," by Paul Simon, "Nessun dorma," from "Turandot," "Bring him home," from "Les Miserables," or "I could have danced all night," from "My Fair Lady," and more than I can write down without blowing the word limit. Or, how about "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" or "Officer Krupke," from "West Side Story," or "What a terribly awful movie!" from "Trouble in Tahiti" for humor?

And to bring it back to hip-hop, just rhythym and words, nothing new in music history, how about "Candy bar blues," by Paul Stuckey of Peter, Paul, and Mary, or "The Pool Table" from "The Music Man?"

In essence, in the lyric art form, words and music are integrated to communicate more powerfully than either could alone. Music can convey a generalized emotional content. Lyrics, words, give it its specific point. The music gives those words added significance.

Think about cartoons, comics. Is this not an art form? I would argue that it is (or can be). If the artwork is of good quality, can we just dispense with the words and still get the point? No. As with music, there are works by Charles Addams, for example, that need no words, the visual is enough, but that's the minority.

Certainly one can appreciate Opera without the words, but, without at least a synopsis (a brief of the words, in essence), it can be quite tedious. See "Marriage of Figaro" in English and I think you will be amazed that a work of Musical Comedy of such brilliance and wit was created so far ahead of American Musical Theatre. The music is brilliant, but the words of Lorenzo Da Ponte inspired Mozart to heights he never quite reached in his instrumental music, in my opinion. I was an instrumentalist before becoming an opera singer and I never really loved Mozart (except for "Turkish March" and some tunes here and there) until I heard his operas. He put down in music complexities of human emotion underneath the likewise brilliant text that lift that composition to heights it would never reach without the human voice and the words it can express.

Cheers and Long Live Music.

My only point is still true: Take away the words, and you still have music -- regardless of how much of its meaning has been taken away. Take away the music and leave the words, and there is no music.

[alann 0]

My only point is still true: Take away the words, and you still have music -- regardless of how much of its meaning has been taken away. Take away the music and leave the words, and there is no music.

I understand your point. I think you're missing mine. The opera "Carmen" is not "The Opera, 'Carmen'" without the words.

So that this doesn't end up in complete circularity, I will without hesitation grant you that, yes, the

"Habanera," without the words, is still a musical composition -- an incomplete one, according to the composer, to the librettist, to the audience who would be squinting at the mezzo wondering what happened to her voice, or to the critic, scribbling madly that Mme. Vocepiccina "could not be heard over the orchestra."

Yes, it would still be "music," but not the composition created by the composer, who put great care into the setting of the text. In the case of a singer-songwriter, like Carole King, you'd be likely to hear it this way in an elevator and, sure, it's "music," but her reason for writing it is not contained in that wordless version. It's not the same piece of music. The issue was whether lyrics are essential to a musical composition. The answer is: They are if they are. If they are part of the composition and the music has been designed around them, then that totality is the musical composition. I could claim that every single track of a multi-track recording in a studio, from the bass-only track, to the flute track, whatever, is also "music," but what, exactly, am I really saying? So what?

A work of art is a volitional composition of disparate elements, forming a cohesive whole, which, together, expresses that artist's vision, his "selective recreation of reality." The fact that you can slice pieces off of it and still identify it as art does not change the fact that you have changed, possibly deformed, this work of art. In an analogous way in which Keating added fru fru to Howard Roark's building, one could also violate the piece by removing pieces of that integrated whole. Puccini's "La Boheme," or Paul McCartney's "Yesterday," are lyric compositions. The words and music were written to be sung together. That is the artist's intent and that is the artistic product which you are enjoying or evaluating.

For the purposes of analysis, you can look at the music separately from the words in a lyric work. The music can be "repurposed" into instrumental versions, but that is irrelevant to the discussion of that piece of music itself. Otherwise, we could just carry this disintigrative argument into every art form. Let's chop the head out of the Mona Lisa and talk about landscapes, or knock the arms off the Venus de Milo (oh, never mind, that's been done), or paint fig leaves over genitals on the Sistine Chapel, as the famous artist Other Hands liked to do, or separate dance from music and talk about movement. And when you get to recititive, which comprises about 2/3 of any opera before 1830 or thereabouts, you remove the words and you remove the melody as well. Recitative is designed, at least in the 'secco' period, to imitate the cadence and "music" of spoken speech. It was stylized, later, by Verdi and others, "through-composed," but its essence is the words. The melody is sketched in, but the singer varies the rhythym and often pitches and cadences at the ends of phrases to better communicate the meaning of the words. Can we now just eliminate recitative from our discussion of opera, because it's "just words?" It's an integral part of the opera. Think "Barber of Seville." The recitatives are wonderful and witty and wordy. The composition is all of that.

To say that words are not essential to a musical composition because they can be removed, leaving "music" seems to me to be rationalistic. You are redefining an artist's product and arbitrarily eliminating a component that is critical to the meaning of the piece. Yes, you can do that, but no, not without destroying the piece itself. I have absolutely no problem with claiming that an instrumental version of a lyric piece can be considered music. Of course it can. But the fact that you can remove something doesn't mean that it's not an essential part of that composition.

[Rose Lake 0]

I have absolutely no problem with claiming that an instrumental version of a lyric piece can be considered music. Of course it can. But the fact that you can remove something doesn't mean that it's not an essential part of that composition.

I was discussing music as such. You are talking about mixed compositions, which integrate music with other elements, e.g. drama. Hip hop, judged as music, for instance, is, generally speaking, just barely music -- usually of the simplest kind. It is generally, and primarily, something "more" (or other) than music, i.e. "rapping."

I am certainly not arguing that specific compositions do not require words, in order to be whatever they are, e.g. musical-drama, advertising jingles, rap, etc. But any such work, although it includes music, is more than music by definition -- and I think should be judged as a mixed composition. However, the musical aspect of any such composition can be judged separately, for the purpose of analysis, as can the other elements.

Then the analysis of the parts can and should be integrated. But if some musical elements of any particular mixed composition are lacking, then they're lacking. If words obviate any such lack, when one includes in his judgment the purpose of the mixed composition, e.g. if certain music is only a minor part of an entire integrated work; then that can be determined by analysis. In mixed compositions, I prefer the parts of those compositions which have underlying music that is good, on its own, as music.

[B. Royce 0]

My only point is still true: Take away the words, and you still have music -- regardless of how much of its meaning has been taken away. Take away the music and leave the words, and there is no music.

I've been away a while, so I'm just jumping in. I would say, Take away the sung words of a particular song and you don't have the same music you had before; take away the accompanying instrumental music and you still have the music of the sung words. The obvious point being---to regard the sung words of a song as "only" words, or "unsung" words, is a mistake which leads to confusion.

[Rose Lake 0]

I've been away a while, so I'm just jumping in. I would say, Take away the sung words of a particular song and you don't have the same music you had before; take away the accompanying instrumental music and you still have the music of the sung words. The obvious point being---to regard the sung words of a song as "only" words, or "unsung" words, is a mistake which leads to confusion.

Not the same music, but music. Sung words are music because the human voice is carrying a tune. If the words were merely spoken, there would be no music. Yet without one word, there can be music. I have been making the simplest possible factual statment, about which there is, objectively, nothing controversial, and no reason for confusion.