music is intent.

someone banging two garbage can lids together is musical if they intend it as such.  from there it is just subjectively a matter of how original, effective and pleasing one finds the message of the sound.

the problem is that the definition of music for the modern listener tends to rest not within the first set, the set of intent, but within the second, the set of subjective preference, which is a subset of intent.

this is the root of my frustration with the attitudes of many 'progressive' record labels.  there is an elitism at work that makes it next-to-impossible for anyone to be heard (yes, I am writing partly from personal experience) who does not go to the expense of doing their work on audiophile-grade gear.  because of this attitude, not only are there many working artists not getting exposure, but people who would be artists, even just for their own satisfaction, are giving up before they start, since gear is for the most part astronomically expensive.

people may also get ridiculed for trying something new.  this chilly climate is the result of a similar elitist attitude among those with musical training or experience (by no means all of us), or those who will choose to judge the novice against the yardstick of their own favorite established performers, which is patently unfair.

I propose a new definition of music as intent, that places value on an impressive sound an individual creates by any means.  this would make it acceptable for anyone to create for the sake of creating, with whatever they wish to use, thereby liberating musical expression from dogmatic narrow-mindedness and material limits.

the flip side to this is that musical expression becomes near-universal.  but wouldn't that be wonderful, if everyone at least had the opportunity to make music and be supported in doing it?

it strikes me that the world of music is currently realizing of its own inertia that copyrighting recorded music is ultimately as futile as caging water; and that expression belongs to the world.  plagiarism may become a fully-fledged form of expression before too long; there is already a sort of precedent set in found-sound artworks and unlicensed remixes.  but what is more significant is that music, new and old, will make its way through the world with unthinkable swiftness, and live on as if for ever.

I hope that the artists of the world can accept the paradigm shift all this entails.  but I think it's fair to say that no artist legitimately concerned with expression would ever stop creating music in the absence of a paycheque or universal acknowledgement; even if they had to leave their mansion and bang two garbage can lids together, just so that they could proclaim: "I did that!"

© 2009