This is a response article to: John Cage’s 4’33″ Is Not Music
All Cage really wanted was for people to stop and listen to the sounds in the environment around them. So much anger is levied at this piece for no good reason. Cage never considered it to be music; sure it is performed in musical settings alongside musical works, and I guess this leads it to be evaluated using the same critical bile or adoration as conventional music.
A sophisticated system of instrumental music theory was developed in Ancient Greece that still greatly influences music theory today. The Greeks’ commitment to logical thought, abstraction, and classification enabled them to surpass all previous civilizations in terms of musical organization and complexity, and all later generations of western instrumental music would draw from this established base.
Pythagoras is usually credited with discovering the perfect intervals on a vibrating string that lead to the first formations of Greek musical theory…
Been there – done that. Is this dance music déjà-vu?
I like retro sounds but “All Bad” is a collection of derivative dance tracks that are little to close to what other artists have recently put out (and I’m talking about in just the last year or two). While imitation may be the highest form of flattery it’s not a strong place to begin your career from. Not if you’re trying to leave your own mark in the music business because you only end up eating other artists’ dust at the end of the day.
Unlike many other ancient civilizations, the Greeks recorded, in writing, many of their thoughts and philosophies on music and how it relates to humans. Through them, an interesting view can be gained of how music affected people in the ancient world, and what they thought its purpose was.
Greek mythology held that the earliest musicians were gods such as Apollo, Hermes, Amphion, and Orpheus. The word music itself comes from the mythical concept of the muse. The Greeks made use of music in most aspects of life, from religious ceremonies to military events, and they generally thought of it as an art of enjoyment and a science related to arithmetic and astronomy.