What is music? I bet you can ask anybody the same question and get a different answer from each of them. You might say something along the lines of a combination of different instruments to create something that sounds pleasing. Some people might add vocals in there. Others might add some mixes on their computer which is considered electronic. Regardless of your opinion on “What is Music?” my goal today is really to make us all think if there is a difference between music and noise and exactly what that is.
If you go back a couple hundred years, what was “pop” music back then might be a lot closer to what we call classical music nowadays. Over the last few decades, “pop music” has become a genre of music that we often associate with artists such as Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. The meaning of what pop really was known as was the music of the time that is currently popular. Thus, it would encompass all genres that are currently popular rather than just one particular style. In fact, if you refer to Billboard Top 100 Pop Artists list, you might find rap artists, electronic artists and all other types of musicians.
More and more you see this genre that’s just entered the game called “Dubstep” Dubstep is a new genre of electronic dance music that modifies a range of different noises into something that is aesthetically pleasing to our bodies and ears. Although everyone seems to love this music now, it wasn’t too long before that people rejected it as a style calling it just “noise”. In fact, many of today’s Dubstep artists are actually indie artists because record labels rejected them until their music started to go viral with the help of the internet. The reason is because Dubstep artists create their music by making sounds and changing them through computers. Dubstep is an experimental genre of music which the musicians challenge themselves to use unconventional noises to create music. It is common to hear everything from screams, table banging, chainsaws, record scratching and much more in a song within this genre. Pretty much any sound that you could make, a dubstep artist would be more than happy to try to create something out of it. On top of the uncommon practices with recording sounds, the editing techniques are also very experimental. They include rewinding sounds, changing the pitch to extreme levels, bass drops and even inverting the tracks. Dubstep artists will even take existing videos and sounds online and edit them to create something new. It also is common for entire songs to be created 100% electronically.
So my question to you is what makes you differentiate between noise and music? Dubstep has become the new pop genre in today’s world and musicians not limited to the ones already listed are incorporating them in their typical “pop” songs. Even a musician like Taylor Swift who at the time was considered a country artist (despite this being debated) incorporated dubstep into her song “I Knew You Were Trouble” which ended up reaching #2 on the Billboard charts.
On that note, I leave you with this video.
rickyveliz 