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There is no dilemma. Rhythm is an utterly fundamental, inseparable part of music. If anything, it's arguably more fundamental than melody (and certainly more so
by omnicognate 4y ago
There is no dilemma. Rhythm is an utterly fundamental, inseparable part of music. If anything, it's arguably more fundamental than melody (and certainly more so than harmony).
Just try getting a computer to play the notes of some of your favourite tunes with equal - or, better, random - duration and weighting if you want to be convinced of that. Also observe that music without melody can be found everywhere, from rap to Steve Reich to the Kodo Drummers, but to exclude rhythm relegates you to the really out there stuff like 4'33" (complete silence) or music composed of randomly timed or continuously varying sounds.
We have perfectly good terms to distinguish between rhythm and melody such as, you know, "rhythm" and "melody". Your instinctive desire to define "music" so as to somehow exclude rhythm is simply wrong.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago> Also observe that music without melody can be found everywhere, from rap to Steve Reich Steve Reich would dispute this, with gusto. You can only possibly make the claim that he ever composed non-melodic sound in his earliest years (e.g. "Come Out"), but even then he was fascinated by the implicit melodic signatures of otherwise non-melodic music (realized later in a piece like Different Trains, where he explicitly has instruments play the melody of spoken words).
- omnicognate 4y agoI didn't say he only made non-melodic music. I don't see on what basis he or anyone would describe Clapping Music (which I recently saw performed at a school concert, hence it being on my mind), for example, as melodic.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y agoFair enough, though Clapping Music is AFAIR the exception that proves the rule.