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Phenomenon of Music: What is Music? Part I
As far as I know, every society has some form of music. Music is universal, however its meaning is not. Music, through a Universal phenomenon, gets its meaning from culture. Different cultures interpret it differently. With the term culture, I connote the whole way of life of that specific group of people, learned and transmitted from one generation to the next. We call ‘music’ music, however not all cultures have a word for it.
My interest in this article is not directed towards the distinctions that people make between – lets say – a major and minor chords, but rather towards what the Nature of music is, how it fits into societies worldwide, and how it is arranged conceptually by the people who use and organize it – music as a form of organized sound.
Noise or non-music
One of the most important concepts is the distinction between music on one hand and noise, or non-music on the other hand. This is fundamental to the understanding of music in any society.
Furthermore, what is considered to be music or non-music, determined the nature of music in any given society. If one group considers the sound of the wind in the trees as music and another does not, it is evident that the concepts of what music is or is not must differ widely. If we observe the Basonge people of the Congo for instance, they have this saying that ” When you are happy you sing. When you are angry you make noise”. Should we associate this saying with an angry heavy metal singer? For the Basonge music always involved human beings. The sounds that emanate or originate from non-human sources are not considered music. A good example is the above-mentioned singing of the birds, or the wind singing in the trees.
Language and Music
A special problem presents itself in the relationship between language and music. In language sounds are arranged too. For the western ear a distinction is often difficult or even impossible to make, especially with sounds produced by people that have tonal languages, spoken by a great number of people around the world.
Is the boundary between language and music blurred? Rap the heart of hip-hop culture is widely used in classical music under a different name. Sprechgesang is an expressionist vocal technique between singing and speaking. Though sometimes used interchangeably, sprechgesang is a term directly related to the operatic recitative manner of singing (in which pitches are sung, but the articulation is rapid and loose like speech), whereas sprechstimme is closer to speech itself (because it does not emphasize any particular pitches). Both of these different styles of music provide examples that show that the precincts between language and music are unclear as well as imprecise.
Is this Music?
Not many people will deny the fact that the Kunst der Fuge by JS Bach is music. Nonetheless, there is something very out of the ordinary about this piece of music. Firstly, we cannot find one single clue from Bach, indicating that he wrote this in order to be performed. If you observe the original score, there are not tempo markings, instrumentation instructions etc. Should we assume that Bach, just for his own amusement tried out various possibilities of one single theme as a kind of musical challenge? Should we assume that it is just “paper music” that was never intended to be performed or sound at all? Is it really music then? Is it only music in the head of the composer, the person who reads it, who “thinks” this as music?
What is Music?
It is very difficult to define music. Should we say that music is a form of organized sound and is everything that is perceived as music by a person in a given culture? Always keep in mind that Jaco heard music as the train passed through.
Feel free to comment and discuss.
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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