What Music is Not (Part 1)

Music is not an imitation of nature. In this sense, music is not like painting, statuary, or architecture in that the material of the art does not occur in nature. The colours of a painting are based on those that exist in nature. The wood, clay, and marble of statuary can be found in nature. In terms of architecture, space isn’t exactly very hard to come by when one examines nature. The material of music is sound. Yes, sound exists in nature but if one heard the sounds of nature, one probably wouldn’t use it to put together a piano sonata or four movement symphonies. The sound of water droplets falling on to a leaf could serve the purpose of the basic tempo but as far as lifting off nature goes, that’s about as far as we can go.

The material of music is sound. By sound, we mean sound that is pitched and sound that is of human creation. The notion of pitched sound is central to music in that when music is arranged in time, there, more often than not has to be a discernable melody or two. In terms of a human creation, very rarely do we encounter pitched sound in nature and even if we do find it, it is erratic in that it doesn’t sustain itself for any long period of time. Given this limitation, man has to create what he needs to achieve this effect. Consequently, music is not a strict imitation of the sounds that one experiences in nature. Though there have been attempts at doing so, it just falls flat. A CD with the “songs of the whale” on it hardly qualifies as what one would call music. This is not to say, however, that it is creation ex nihilo. Certainly, musical instruments need raw materials but these raw materials do not constitute sound.

Essentially, music is an art of man in that everything to do with music comes from man. The human voice is the most basic of instruments and that is the bare minimum needed for music. The sound of a cat’s meow will not suffice. Beyond the voice, man creates instruments that create sound that can be controlled and put together into a comprehensible piece of music. Everything about music is about man and what he is capable of.