What is music

[RJG]

If a specific arrangement of notes/sounds can create pleasurable feeling(s), then is it possible to identify this secret mathematical equation(s), so as to generate new pleasurable music?

[Prismatic]

If a specific arrangement of notes/sounds can create pleasurable feeling(s), then is it possible to identify this secret mathematical equation(s), so as to generate new pleasurable music?

While it may not be easy to do because what is pleasurable depends on individual taste, I think it may be quite possible to write programs that can compose at least short pieces that do this. Schumann in his Carnival gives an absolutely perfect imitation of Chopin, but I am doubtful that a computer could compose a melody as enticing as that of the Andante Cantabile in Schumann's Piano Quartet in E- Flat, Op. 47.

[Mcdoodle]

Natural sound such as birdsong or thunderstorm has much in common with music, such as symmetry and asymmetry in beautiful proportion to each other. The difference between natural sounds and music proper is that music proper is human artefact. Human artefact is defined by the intention of the maker of it.

There are some distinctions being made in this thread which for me need disentangling. To create, and to enjoy, music are different albeit related skills and pleasures. The pleasures of rhthym, melody and structure seem involved on all sides, and are not confined to humans.

What is 'natural' and 'music proper' is slippery here. Thunderstorm may be natural but birdsong is made by birds, who have some sort of culture, however we explain it, through which song is created, expressed and modified, and for them song has function and form.

It may be that dolphins and certain whales, - especially the Megaptera novaeangliae - create structured music as humans do, in patterns we are only beginning to understand, often at wavelengths inaudible to the human ear.

There's also quite a lot of neurological research into how humans apprehend music. Parts of the brain associated with language appear implicated, especially in people with musical training, as well as what some people call 'emotional' areas. To me music clearly has profound meaning, irreducible to language.

[Jklint]

Music is that, without which, life would be a mistake...to paraphrase Nietzsche. Every art, including mathematics is more amenable to description than music. To me it's more like a quantum theory of sound and spirit combining. It's a flourishing of probabilities which always re fertilize with different nutrients especially in those creations impervious to penetration even by the composer himself. For me such compositions - among others - would be Bruckner's eight & ninth symphonies, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and what seems almost supernatural, the ending to Wagner's Parsifal. Philosophy is not in any way equal to describe it. When dying one wishes to experience the ineffable without having to think about it and music for most offers that kind of amelioration.

Music is more than mere sound. It is the harmony contained in all structures whether they be micro or macro which is only a synthesis and a fugue of many parts. Music, in a sense, is our most potent alliance with that harmony; something we wish to feel until the very last moment.