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CladInShadows on 27 October 2015
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padib said:
CladInShadows said:

padib said:

I am not saying that all screamo music is bad...

1. I don't believe I implied that. But that being said, there are good examples and bad examples of just about every genre of music out there. I have heard some shitty shitty metal in my day, let me tell ya.

2. I'm not a fan of screamo in any way, so I'll take your word for it. My passion is metal, and that's all I'm qualified to speak on.

Anyways, I can definitely see where you're coming from in this argument.  Taken on its own, screams do not sound like what most would consider music. Especially in that video you posted because it's just random screaming. I'm sure if you isolate some bass-lines from some music, it would be hard to see the music in that as well.  I think metal, much more so than many other genres, is about the whole sound. It's how the vocals, guitars, drums, and any other instrumental arrangements come together to form music. Take one instrument out and isolate it, and it sounds far removed from the whole. I won't directly compare it with classical music, but some parallels can be drawn.

So yeah, it's hard to claim that random growling alone is music, but pull all the pieces together and it gets harder to deny the musicality.

I'm glad we can meet in the middle here. The clip of the guy screaming was there to convey an idea, especially to help us define what in our minds is, and what is not music. Though it's clear to many people here that the clip is not music, who's to say that someday a genre will not emerge where people express themselves by creating non-music for people to listen to, as a form of countering conformity? Put a cacophonic base run and some horrible percussion-like sounds and you have some form of creation. Also, some genres of music exploit noise and dissonance in order to create some form of musical expression. Is it not music though it lacks harmony in a few segments? Just an example: 


And then there's the other side of the coin. Music isn't exclusively defined by the existence of an arrangement. I could hum a new melody accapella, it would still be music.

All in all the question is very fair.

Music isn't exclusively defined in black and white, anyways. Which is why this thread exists. What is music and (especially) what is considered GOOD music varies from person to person, and from culture to culture.  Which is why music that originates from Ireland, Africa, Sweden, India, and Compton will all vary greatly.  Sure, there's a lot of cross contamination, but certain conditions and political climates will foster different music in different parts of the world. 

Since I know that a good portion of the population would scoff at the music I listen to and question its musical relevance, I have come to accept that even though there's a lot of styles out there that I strongly dislike (rap comes to mind), I can't deny that millions/billions of people love it and absolutely consider it music. I don't have the right to say it is or isn't music.