Well music is, inarguably, a form of art which is created and delivered using sound and silence. But sometimes fundamental definitions on art and music are forgotten and replaced by the entertaining aspects of music. What I'm asking is: Do you prefer to consider the music you're listening to (mostly metal music in this case,) as a form of art that needs to be studied and therefore pursuing the music theory more than ever or you prefer to be a casual listener and simply enjoy the music? If you have any other approaches that comes in-between these two basic approaches, I would be happy to know about it if you're willing to share them.

I am very analytic person so i analyse what i listen all the time... i dissect riffs,analyse tones,observe lyrics , technical and such stuff while i listen to music...i tend to diminish the entertainment aspect of music....

Rock n' roll ain't science!

Written by Zombie94 on 20.01.2013 at 14:51

Rock n' roll ain't science!

exactly.

I enjoy it intensely as a form of art without murdering to dissect it. Just like when enjoying other forms of art I can't be arsed about the theory behind it or the technicalities involved. ARrt should move th heart and not be analyzed to death.

Written by ANGEL REAPER on 20.01.2013 at 13:25

I am very analytic person

I am extremely analytical during every day life but totally not when it comes to art, which music is. Art should move and not be overanalyzed since that takes away the soul with which it was made.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 20.01.2013 at 15:05

Written by ANGEL REAPER on 20.01.2013 at 13:25

I am very analytic person

I am extremely analytical during every day life but totally not when it comes to art, which music is. Art should move and not be overanalyzed since that takes away the soul with which it was made.

dont know about that man...i also write music on my own so this is actually the way how i get better in doing that...by listening to people who do that better than me...also i dont do over analyzing all the time ...only when i focus on stuff that i want to improve... call me a quiet student if you like...

Written by Zombie94 on 20.01.2013 at 14:51

Rock n' roll ain't science!

and math rock?

Written by Ellrohir on 20.01.2013 at 15:35



and math rock?

What about it?

Written by Zombie94 on 20.01.2013 at 15:48

Written by Ellrohir on 20.01.2013 at 15:35



and math rock?

What about it?

Math is science..

Written by Fallen Ghost on 20.01.2013 at 16:03


Math is science..

Yeahhhh but music isn't. Music is art. Math rock is just a name people slapped on a genre of music that uses weird time signatures.

I just listen to it casually .. I woul like to understand more about music theory, though

Written by Zombie94 on 20.01.2013 at 16:25

Written by Fallen Ghost on 20.01.2013 at 16:03


Math is science..

Yeahhhh but music isn't. Music is art. Math rock is just a name people slapped on a genre of music that uses weird time signatures.

Yes, I think he meant it as a joke

By analyzing what do you mean exactly ?

I would have to say both, because when i get a new album i listen to it like 7-8 times before i say that i've heard the album. Upon the first listen i always just listen to it "casually" meaning i just wanna see how it sounds like, if it has any nice melodies or in non melodic sub genres, some good riffs or slams or stuff like that, then i analyze every instrument giving the album a whole listen while concentrating on only 1 of the instruments the whole time...repeat that for all the instruments involved (including vocals) and when i'm done with that i listen to it again, analyzing the music as a "whole"...so yeah..like i said about 7-8 listens before i can talk shit about an album. So according to this i would say i'm more on the analytical side but even so, i don't say that i like or even love an album if it doesn't sound good, even if it's well written and played so to sum it up, both aspects are important but the theoretical one a little bit more

I doubt there is anyone that only studies music and doesn't enjoy it casually, but i think you need to do some studying if you're a musician. If i'm studying or at the gym I'm obviously listening to it casually, but since I play guitar as well I will also sit and dissect out all the instruments in a song trying to identify scales, chord progressions, time signatures changes, song structure, guitar techniques etc in order to improve my own playing and writing.

I'm not a music major though so it's not to the point that it becomes a science...

As a musician, I tend to dissect riffs and drum fills. Especially if i want to try and play something similar. However most of the time I just listen, sometimes air drum.

Written by Fallen Ghost on 20.01.2013 at 16:38

Yes, I think he meant it as a joke

yep...looks like i am not really good at making jokes

Depends of the mood for me. Sometimes I listen just for the sake of listening and enjoying the music and sometimies when I try to catch fresh ideas for my own work I analyze the bands that I like.

I like to read the lyrics to see if the music goes well with the lyrics, I also do a 100 other stuff to see if the music (song) is actually worth listening to in the future . Then it goes to my iPod after examination

I think I'm somewhere in-between. I find that the "exploration" I do within the music actually increases my enjoyement of it, and in turn gives the music more substance and replay-value. However like others already said, I don't think music is meant to be analyzed/examined/studied/etc to death. Though I don't see anything wrong with discovering and exploring music as an artform, and this is how I personally roll.

Written by Zombie94 on 20.01.2013 at 14:51

Rock n' roll ain't science!

Actually the great thing about music is that it is both art and science.

It is a precise, mathematical, and very logical way of communicating the abstract. These two extremes on opposite sides of the spectrum--logical precision and artful abstraction--come together in music like they do in no other form of human creation.

Like a language, music is written with the logical portion of our brain, with time signatures dividing each bar mathematically, with each note representing a certain vibrating frequency for a certain length of time, which is a division time within the bar. The sound itself, however, triggers something emotional, something abstract, something beyond logic. It communicates what cannot be communicated through the use of rational systems. It communicates what can only be communicated through art.

I listen to music to enjoy it as an art, but I definitely appreciate it for the science of how and why it works.

Pardon me for this long post; I was going to use the link but it appears to be broken now. I'll post it anyway, but it doesn't seem to be working for me. Still, I thought this was interesting enough to share with all of you.

http://www.tripping-the-world.com/the_Scales_of_Pythagoras.html

----
"Two and a half thousand years ago, even before the Parthenon was complete, mathematicians like Pythagoras were working out the principals of music. Just below the acropolis is the ancient agora, mostly rubble now. This was once the marketplace of Athens. And the story goes that Pythagoras was walking down the streets, probably thinking of triangles, when he became aware of the hammering of anvils from a blacksmith's shop. The funny thing was that the anvils were bonging away in perfect harmony with each other. One would clang though the air and then another beside it would chink out a perfect fifth while another behind it would give off a minor third. Curious, Pythagoras went down into the shop and almost immediately he could see what was causing this. It was the size of the anvils.
I suppose to a rather annoyed blacksmith shop foremen, Pythagoras stopped their work to measure the anvils precisely and this is what he found: it's all about ratios. Music is all about ratios.
You would think scales are just linear mathematical processions of notes . Well, they're not. It's much more complicated than that. What Pythagoras found out is that a 12 pound anvil and a six pound anvil would ring in a perfect octave to each other. That's because the ratio is 2 to 1 - which is usually written in math as 2:1.
But if you take that same 12 pound anvil and hit an 8 pound anvil beside it. The 8 pounder will give off a perfect fifth. Again, it's the ratio. This time it's 3:2. Now, that's very strange. Why should our ears - or our brains more correctly - hear ratios? And it certainly doesn't end there. Every single note in a scale - any scale - is not a linear progression of vibrations per second. It's not A 440, then B 445 and C 450. It doesn't work like that. All notes are ratios built up over the central octave or tonic note.
And of course you had to be Pythagoras to figure all this out. He took the ideas back to his work room and began to measure the strings on instruments and sure enough, there were the exact same ratios. Complicated but undeniable. A perfect fourth is 8:6, a minor third is 6:5 and a single whole note interval is 9:8.
This, by the way, is what humans hear and dogs don't. Our brains comprehend the complex relationships between notes - and that is what scales, or for that matter, what melodies are. Dogs hear the pitches all right and sometimes even howl at them but their dog brains can't pick out the intervals. They couldn't comprehend the step from, say, a C to an Eb interval (a minor third) if it bit them in the ass.
There's at least one interval though for which our brains are no better than a Rottweiler's or Chihuahua's. This is the so-called Tristan chord. It's an augmented fourth. If you start with a C then it will be that plus an F#. For many thousands of years and all over the world, putting these two notes together was completely shunned. In the middle ages, it was even called the Diabolus in Musica - the Devil's music - and it does, to this day, strike us as discordant - as brash and unpleasant. It now appears in certain pieces. Wagner bravely used it in the opening to Tristan and Isolde in 1865 and Stravinsky toyed with it in his Rite of Spring (which, famously, caused the audience at the premiere in Paris in 1913 to riot). You'll hear it in the occasional Miles Davis or Charlie Parker Be-bop solo but on the whole, you still won't hear an augmented fourth very often.
And why? Because the ratio is the square root of two over one. Now, the square root of two, as any math student can tell you, is an irrational number. It's stark raving mad. The decimal places have been calculated up to 10 million places and still there's no end. It's a number that doesn't exist in any stable way in the real world and yet, we can hear it. Anyone can play this Tristan chord on a piano.
It is literally the sound of a square root, an irrational square root, and I find it a wonder that our brain also hears it as irrational. Just like the way a dog might struggle to make out a melody, our human brains can't unravel this devil's interval. We hear it as not making sense, and to me that's fascinating. It's as if the mathematical truth of the universe is hardwired into us."

Written by Jaeryd on 21.01.2013 at 16:31

It is a precise, mathematical, and very logical way of communicating the abstract. These two extremes on opposite sides of the spectrum--logical precision and artful abstraction--come together in music like they do in no other form of human creation.

Like a language, music is written with the logical portion of our brain, with time signatures dividing each bar mathematically, with each note representing a certain vibrating frequency for a certain length of time, which is a division time within the bar. The sound itself, however, triggers something emotional, something abstract, something beyond logic. It communicates what cannot be communicated through the use of rational systems. It communicates what can only be communicated through art.

I listen to music to enjoy it as an art, but I definitely appreciate it for the science of how and why it works.

Yep. I'm more than aware that there is a lot of scientific and mathematical aspects to MUSIC THEORY. Music theory is very useful for being able to put music into language.... BUT, when it comes to songwriting, there is no winning scientific formula you can use that will ensure it's going to be a 'good song' that everyone will love. That's what I mean by it not being science. Music is something you either feel or you don't, and everyone has different tastes.

Since I review music, I try to analyze it and enjoy it at the same time. If the band does a terrible job, I won't just say "it sucks", I will explain why it sucks. If I enjoy it, I have to explain why I enjoy it. Saying "it's awesome" won't suffice.

Voted Other... why ?

Cause you forgot to add. Enjoying it ''INTENSELY ALL THE FUCKING TIME'' as a form of art.
Fuck Casually ? lol I wanna see you guys bangin, dancing, jumping around, air guitaring, air pianoing, air drumming
Laughing, crying, noding... fucking puking if you must ! and Be intense about it NOW. No matter what you listen to
and why you're listening to it. C'mon what are you looking at ? Be quick about it.

Written by Guib on 23.01.2013 at 22:28

Voted Other... why ?

Cause you forgot to add. Enjoying it ''INTENSELY ALL THE FUCKING TIME'' as a form of art.
Fuck Casually ? lol I wanna see you guys bangin, dancing, jumping around, air guitaring, air pianoing, air drumming
Laughing, crying, noding... fucking puking if you must ! and Be intense about it NOW. No matter what you listen to
and why you're listening to it. C'mon what are you looking at ? Be quick about it.

we just ran out of energy drinks ...

Written by ANGEL REAPER on 25.01.2013 at 00:01

Written by Guib on 23.01.2013 at 22:28

we just ran out of energy drinks ...

Loll Ya don't need that !

Written by Guib on 25.01.2013 at 02:26

Written by ANGEL REAPER on 25.01.2013 at 00:01

Written by Guib on 23.01.2013 at 22:28

we just ran out of energy drinks ...

Loll Ya don't need that !

dont know man,your post sounded like it was fueled by a lot of energy drinks

Written by Guib on 23.01.2013 at 22:28

Voted Other... why ?

Cause you forgot to add. Enjoying it ''INTENSELY ALL THE FUCKING TIME'' as a form of art.
Fuck Casually ? lol I wanna see you guys bangin, dancing, jumping around, air guitaring, air pianoing, air drumming
Laughing, crying, noding... fucking puking if you must ! and Be intense about it NOW. No matter what you listen to
and why you're listening to it. C'mon what are you looking at ? Be quick about it.

Knowing that there's going to be an extreme intensity to the degree of which you enjoy your music or study it, that's out of the question.

Written by ANGEL REAPER on 25.01.2013 at 11:05

Written by Guib on 25.01.2013 at 02:26

Written by ANGEL REAPER on 25.01.2013 at 00:01

Written by Guib on 23.01.2013 at 22:28

we just ran out of energy drinks ...

Loll Ya don't need that !

dont know man,your post sounded like it was fueled by a lot of energy drinks

Some don't need Energy Drinks, they have enough adrenaline to be unstoppable.

Written by Monolithic on 25.01.2013 at 20:48

Written by Guib on 23.01.2013 at 22:28

Written by ANGEL REAPER on 25.01.2013 at 11:05

Written by Guib on 25.01.2013 at 02:26

Written by ANGEL REAPER on 25.01.2013 at 00:01

Written by Guib on 23.01.2013 at 22:28

Some don't need Energy Drinks, they have enough adrenaline to be unstoppable.

Thats Exactly me man... No need of energy drinks, cocaine, coffee... whatever you use.
Music is enough for me to kick a thousand asses ! lol But its always better when you
do it with friends, in a show... after few beers and few strange conversations here and there.