I do not deny that music is useful in its own way. What I claim is that it does not have any distinct purpose or directly offer any useful cognitive insight. Vague stimuli like music contain incomplete or ambiguous information. The brain attempts to fill in the missing details or interpret such information. Therefore, music can stimulate, among other things, creativity and imagination by enticing the brain to explore various possibilities and interpretations of it as a somewhat illusional experience. Abstract in nature, music can still evoke indistinct emotional responses by triggering uncertainty, curiosity, or intrigue. The brain may respond to vague stimuli with heightened attention and emotional engagement, which, in synergy with its innate harmonious structure, might be experienced as pleasure or satisfaction with perfection. Repetitive elements of music can have a calming effect. This is why techniques like meditation often incorporate things like focusing on breath or listening to calming sounds, including music. And there's much more…
P. S.: All my discussions so far have been presented from the perspective of music listeners. However, the implications for music creators are entirely different.

 

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But isn't individual audience interpretation the success story behind so many famous tunes and compositions? The Lyrics of a sad relationship break-up song will mean something different to everyone that has gone through it and in some cases, some people will feel it mirrors exactly what they went through. The music behind it facilitates that message being interpreted that way.

Famous compositions instrumentally, regardless of the style or genre that have touched people, whether Chariots of Fire, Cavatina, Blue Danube, Nutcracker Suite or any piece that conjures up some kind of feeling and cognitive insight into an individual's own feelings and in many cases, their memories, reminding them of a happy or sad time.

No I am not trying to discount everything you are saying, not by any means. I am merely showing you another side of the same coin. I do not believe anyone has either the ability or statistical knowledge to speak for every music listener and music creator on the planet either. It's just not possible with nearly 8 billion people.

 

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There is nothing sad about music. Please lock this thread and stop bumping it.

 

Vangelis couldn't read music.

 

The reason for notation isn't two way communication, it to get the dolts in the orchestra pit to play what was in Mozart's head. That necessity was the mother of that invention.

 

(Music) does not have any distinct purpose or directly offer any useful cognitive insight
So, it's great that you have an opinion (as everyone is entitled to have: ps I read your interesting comment about how musical stimuli are capable of activating practically all areas of the brain), but unless you're a scholar in the field of musical cognition, that's a pretty dangerous statement to make... but let Diana Deutsch (which discovered a number of illusions of music and speech related to sound perception and memory), Aniruddh D. Patel (which is developing an intricate interface between language, music, syntax and the brain), Patrik N. Juslin (who proposed a model for expression, perception, and induction of musical emotions), Stefan Koelsch (who conducted a series of brain imaging studies demonstrating that music can either communicate meaning, or evoke processes that have meaning for the listener (it can evoke sensations that, before being reconfigured into words, show greater inter-individual correspondence than the words an individual uses to describe those sensations), advertising executives, filmmakers, military commanders and even mothers, say it.

Abstract in nature, music can still evoke (...)
Can you imagine something conceptualized as totally abstract being able to evoke an ocean of wandering meaning? (I emphasize that I wasn't the one who said that, I think that's a very hasty view!). This is precisely why so many researchers from areas as diverse as neuroscience, psychology, neurology, cognitive linguistics, musicology, sociology, among other interdisciplinary approaches, are constantly intrigued by the potential of musical meaning. Certainly, with the evolution of studies and methods for refining and controlling research and, why not say, the presence of AI, we will see very interesting discoveries in the years to come.

 

I still state no one knows how to work with notes.

If thousands of threads like this one are opened, it will not change this sad fact.

Making tons of money or being a successful musician in the eyes of others does not mean that someone knows how to work with notes.

 

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Excellent example!

Once, in a public research seminar with a frustrated academic who complained about the lack of attention that music produced in academia receives from the general public, the case of Vangelis was mentioned (the speaker was torturing viewers with electroacoustic music of questionable quality and relating it to the seminar theme: interfaces between music and technology). One person in the audience mentioned the lack of technical/scientific background on the part of Vangelis and the strong presence of expressiveness and technology (what that guy did in Blade Runner is simply...) as exponents of creation. The speaker became visibly irritated and took the floor and changed the topic. And I find it incredible how the academic musical environment tremble with fear at the prominence that music (film music) has in its dialogue with history, culture, emotion and technology.

For me, the biggest mistake of academics lies in the fact that they do not accept the fact that listeners just want to be emotionally stimulated, rather than stressed, challenged, harassed and bullied for not understanding an aesthetic that deviates from the recurring emotional expression in day to day.

 

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And what have you done to change this in practical terms? (It's not worth mentioning your erratic and intermittent activity here at audiosex.pro)! Since it is very difficult to conceive that someone proposed a thread and presented nothing from a pragmatic point of view, again, cite your own contributions to the topic!

 

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I am a very small part of that very big collection. I never have a claim. I have only one difference and that is that I am 100% sure that no one living now knows how to work with notes. Of course, there is no note in the literal sense anymore.

Note is a historical thing that was discovered, developed and used at one time and later disappeared and now only its name remains.

 

Yes, there are those who believe in the possibility that music only concerns itself. What provokes and instigates many is the fact that these strange and multifaceted sound objects, absolutes in itself, which does not concern anything else, are capable of triggering a whole range of perceptions in the cognizing subject. I smell a rat!

 

I learned standard notation when I was 7 with an classical, acoustic, nylon-stringed guitar.
It's just another language. We all say the same things, but we say them in such different ways, it starts feeling alien.

For me, music is an intrinsic expression of how we feel about something. What I've come to realize is that unless we self-accept and embrace oursleves, it can come out kinda weird. Makes for some fun jams, though.

 

You couldn't even define what are "notes", nor you have given any inkling what one should do with those. So I'm going to take your (lack of) input on that front an admission of ignorance.

 

Maybe so, but they're the ones out writing, touring and making money doing what you wish you could, while you're the one looking like a dumbass on Internet forums..

 

I don't believe in this. He just wants to publicize what could be called "the good cause" (at least it seems that way to him). He demonstrates some insights and likes to provoke discussions... It's as if for him it's better to encourage some kind of subjective reflection (based on extrapolation of traditional conventions and challenging established expectation) than showing these things clearly. But, from then on, it seems to me that he doesn't illustrate his thoughts for fear of being questioned/confronted based on his preferences (perhaps due to the fact that most people wouldn't express interest in what he thinks is cool).

 

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Neither does Tommy Emmanuel and he has no problem saying it.
Being able to read well doesn't necessarily make anyone a great musician. It can only guarantee to make them good at reading music.

 

Nor does Paul McCartney, who has also been known to write (and play) a tune or two.

 

Every skill gets perfected with practice. Surely, music production enhances the skill of music production. In this case, it's not about knowledge but rather about hands-on experience.