What is music, anyway? Frank Zappa once described it as sculpture of the air. That is, sound consists of pulses and waves in the air, and music is an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of sound. That can come from many sources, not all of them human. There is the music of birds singing, the regular rhythm of waves pounding against the rocks, the soft natural woodwind sound made by the wind moving through the woods.
So, we have two basic types of music: that made by human beings, which includes everything from Old McDonald Had a Farm up to Mozart’s operas, it ranges from the greatest jazz musician down to a 4 year old kid screwing around with a kazoo; and that made by nature, which is either random, or instinctive.
Now, there is a third kind. Finding music in things which were previously not considered musical. Just today, I found three examples of this exciting new genre. First, there was this, which explores the possibility of what would happen if you tried to play a slice of a tree like a record, because with their rings, previously only thought to be useful for ascertaining the age of the tree, that’s a thing that can be done. I don’t think it’s going to be the next dance craze, but there was definitely a musicality to it, and apparently each different species of tree has quite a different sound to it. O.K., so it’s 2 years old. I saw it for the 1st time today, and I still think it fits into the miracles-of-our-modern-age category.
Then there was this piece, which I suspect was originally based on a New Yorker cartoon. I don’t know how to read music, so I don’t know how faithful to the birds position the music actually was. I am certain, however, that birds don’t deliberately line up in order to provide the notation for human music. So, it’s gimmicky, but the artist did get a very sweet piece of music out of it.
Of the three, this was by far the most musical, which is why I’ve saved it for last.
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