I’m only here for Ace Ventura. All righty then!
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Recognized as a face smashed with a hammer? Only if you know the title!
There was always a debate throughout history wether music (especially instrumental music without ‘lyrics’) should be a craft of - let’s say - organizating notes in a delightful manner, or a craft of expressing thoughts, feelings and pictures.
However, neither of those parties would’ve ever denied that music is capable of both. They just wanted to justify their choice.
I champion the latter, with the former as a basis. Music scientists like Constantin Floros dedicated their lives to (successfully) decipher the meaning in instrumental compositions.
Now, how would one describe the first riff of “Hammer Smashed Face”? It’s “hammering”. And since it hammers on the same chord, we can assume the same object is hammered in a row. Of course we can’t tell for sure if it’s a hammer and the ‘object’ a face, yet it conveys a vivid picture through notes, rhythm and sound.
Another example would be “Walk” by Pantera, describing the picture of a bold and tough (walking) person instrumentally. Here is to note, that we know that the riff was written before the lyrics, so the lyricist/singer Phil Anselmo heard Dimebag Darrell’s riff and heard the walking person and wrote about this person.
Or in “Strenght Beyond Strenght”, also by Pantera, where at around one minute a very heavy bold and “monstrous” lurking (like ‘lurking for prey’ - hard to put in words - that’s why we have music!) riff comes in, to the words “We’ve grown into a monster. An arrogant, explosive motherf_ck.”
Music with lyrics is just helpful here in that the lyrics help us confirm what we hear into the riffs.
Now I could open the can of instrumental classical music that has no lyrics …!
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Your logic is flawed! Violence is an act!
was not the goal here, but here we have drums and “guitar” kinda (no outboard processing) … digitone kick mangling pt. 2 - YouTube … 
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Sounds great, as soon as I played it my cats violently started fighting!
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Which proves that also cats are able to decipher the content of instrumental music 
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Naaah … They were just finding an excuse to fight!
Ya wanna fight about that!?
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We could, yes!
I’m really interested to hear what people on elektronauts think about noise music related to “violence”.
I know that im coming across as being pita! But it’s not (just lol) that! I like to be strict in defining things because I believe can only help us!
Let’s imagine if someone writes a piece of music that majority of people (that are fans of the genre) would characterized as beautiful (let’s say something like Beethoven’s 3rd movement of his 9th symphony) but if someone would tell us that the author was a military officer who composed the piece as a celebration of genocide going strong or of it was a track like “hammer smashed a face” that I suppose people wouldn’t say it’s beautiful (???dunno) as a reaction to the genocide ending as a failure (or any other combination). In both of these cases it would be an ACT OF VIOLENCE to play that music to anyone related to the genocide and anyone sane would be horrified! So it’s not the music but the meaning behind the story! This was an extreme example for cases in which i could maaaybe justifiably tide music with violence.
Why am i saying this? Because i make noise/industrial music that has nothing to do with violence! It’s sucha miss understanding of noise music with tons of prejudice reinforcing the stereotypes by the very people who make noise; remember power electronics genre?! But they still needed cover arts with dead people and album/track titles to tell us that violence was on their minds and if this track was about child abuse or mass murder because apparently it’s very important to them that we are aware what the music is all about, and that it is about violence.
Don’t you agree that majority people relate noise and even industrial music predominantly with aggression (and even worse, violence)? Do you agree with them? Is noise music just that? Or predominantly that?
Discuss! Now 
But that is what I am saying, it is up to you what you compose into your music. You decided to make noise industrial without implicating violence, and I guess you do that NOT by sounding the same as other noise industrial artists who call their music violent themselves?
As an answer to your first paragrah (Beethoven etc.), how about a comparison with “Hammer Smashed Face” and this piece: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons, Op. 8 (Sheet Music) - YouTube
… one could argue they are the same pieces of music expressing the same. (Edit: I am refering here to the very similar rhythm and contour.)
Actually no! Some of my noise tracks are quite intense; merzbow level! I just dont think that music can be violent and i agree with Schopenhauer here when he says that music is purely related to Will (as a philosophical term) and that other forms of art deal with ideas. Violence is an idea.
Hehe someone im afraid probably can
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The way we understand art is contextual. That context is provided by a number of things including lyrics, titles, genre conventions, and artist history. This is why we can say certain songs or techniques are “violent,” not because they are inherently violent, because they are born from and wielded in a violent context
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I don’t consider most of the noise music I make to be particularly aggressive or violent, it’s far more ambient to me, but if you played it to 1000 people and asked them to describe it in 3 words, I guarantee violent and aggressive would be amongst the most common.
Does that bother me?
Not particularly, because I understand that art is subjective and I’m working in a genre where aggressive and violent themes are the norm. A lot of people will interpret what I’m doing as violent regardless of my intent.
I think a lot of the use of the terms aggressive and violent in this thread are probably shorthand for things like noise, or other more “extreme” or experimental genres.
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Of course; i agree; among other things that’s what I’m saying!
Of course; i agree; that’s what I’m saying!
Where’s the gap between us then? (I mean I don’t have problems with thinking differently but id like to understand more about the matter)
Then I think this is rather a private matter of your own reflection. Personally, this sounds to me like an artistic chance (to express your individuality) missed out on. Maybe. Perhaps.
(Schopenhauer lived in the 19th century btw., he never experienced the 20th century explosion of musical possibilities of expression.)
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Gaps as far as I can tell:
- I understand “violent aggressive music” to mean signifying or suggesting violence, not actually producing violence*. Based on your posts, I’m not sure you do
- You comment about the chromatic value of music vs lyrics/titles suggests you think art can be separated from its context. I don’t agree (though art can be recontextualized)
*except danger music fans
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Er no, your use of language is inconsistent. Your argument used the word violent.
Violent.
Violence.
Adjective, Noun. There’s a difference.
You can use any adjective you like to describe art. Its kinda what adjectives are for.
Can I use adjectives to describe my subjective experience of music?
Yes.
Can I use digitone to make music that fits my subjective experience, and thus the adjectives for that music?
Yes.
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Some great sounds on here. I’m usually trying to make soft and melodic on my DN - I need to give this a crack and throw my Heat on to help.
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