\m/usicology

I feel that music has been best described by Hans Christian Andersen in the following five words:

"Where words fail, music speaks." In fact, music speaks better than words even when they don't fail. Music is a very integral part of everyone's life. A systematic presentation of noise, as I term music, can well represent various moods of a person as well as make plants and animals sway to its tune. The very fact that even plants respond to music, and not words or language, positively, indicates the power of music.

Talking about the 'systematic presentation of noise', I first talk about noise. Noise is a mixture of sound notes and beats, but randomly expressed, without any pattern or rhythm.  When the same notes and beats are presented rhythmically and in particular systematic manner, we find it pleasing to the ears, and term it music. This actually is the basis for composing. Composers basically just pick up some musical notes from a heap of options available to them and arrange them in a way that will sound pleasing to the listeners. Then they add beats to it which go as per a particular tempo.

Then we have made different instruments that present these same notes They however sound different due to differences in harmonics. We have also created different instruments to play the same beats. The may differ in their structure, thus yielding different pitch as well as differences in harmonics.

Using these different instruments, various musicians have worked extensively, and mastered the instruments. Different instruments were brought together to bring different sounds under one umbrella. These led to what are now songs.

As such developments occurred all across the globe, and as development of communication and transportation is a relatively recent phenomenon, different instruments and rhythms developed in different parts of the world. Over time, they were termed as the 'music' of that region and this concept still exists. For example, Indian classical music, rock music, country music, or maybe even the Brazilian Samba beats are nothing more than regional variations of the same notes and beats. Linking these variations together is what we call 'fusion' music nowadays.

The next stage after composition is presentation. That too has acquired different forms. Some music is sung in choirs, some present it in operas, some are solo artists, while some may present it in groups or bands. Each has its own specialty and uniqueness.

Now, mathematics is also increasingly being linked to music. After extensive research in music, a new set theory in music has been developed similar to the set theory in maths. The beats can also be linked with mathematics as they repeat in a cyclic manner. Physicists also have studied sound waves and harmonics in great detail to understand how music works.

Leaving the technical part aside, music, in any form, has always touched everyone's heart. So let us all convert noise into \m/usic!